presented uncut for your reading (dis)pleasure

• if you read this heinously long list of errata and come out with only one piece of meaningful insight, make it this: creating always feels better than consuming.
• the average person takes about 638 million breaths a lifetime
• It's a shame that the movie adaptations of novels are always the top search results when searching for just the name of the novel—another symptom of our society's gradual debasing of the written word; we are reading less and less and writing even less than that.
• “The impatience you feel is your first slave to behead.” —Mythic Dawn Commentaries
• if for whatever reason you feel discouraged just remember that Liam Gallagher exists and is taken seriously by billions of people; meaning: if he can become an international superstar, then you can do anything you put your mind to, because there's no possible way you're as stupid as Liam Fucking Gallagher.
• i’ve heard that Breath of Five III is a good game, but I guess I’ll never know (this is a working title for a piece i’m working on that is not at all about BoF3)
• careful that you're not just adopting an ideology that enables you to be lazy, or mean, or continue doing all the dumb stuff you do. a good litmus test for an ideology is if it leads to self-improvement because, if it doesn't, it probably only exists to justify some harmful stupid crap.
• those who boast are insecure most.
• the daedra are easy, quick satisfactions, tangible, material. the nine divines are hard, self-improvement, intangible, incorporeal. that’s why, in the gameworld of the Elder Scrolls series, you can literally find and interact with the daedra lords, but you cannot with the nine divines.
• it’s zee or zed, pick one. i’m not doing the whole “say both ‘zee’ and ‘zed” thing whenever i refer to the letter Z. it’s ridiculous.
• don't be cryptic and vague—whatever you might think, it doesn't make you look smart, it just pisses people off, and you're effectively just confusing people; obfuscating, comes off as you don't have the confidence to be straightforward about your beliefs or convictions or whatever—maybe because you don't have any that are solid—like you're afraid of ridicule.
• in the American South, every billboard on i-95 is sacrament; you must prostrate yourself every mile, then stop at KFC for some Pepsi in the half-gallon Beverage Bucket™.
• “they say you're a 10, I guess that means 10 dollars a night”
• the sight of the mobile banking (truist) app on my phone fills me with weird dread, so I bury the icon deep in my phone, hoping to never see it; something about life being reduced to numbers in a bank account, as if life is just balancing these numbers until death; it depresses me, even when I have money.
• the semicolon is often used nefariously in journalism headlines; for example, “Federal Funding Frozen; All Govt. Websites Go Down,” when these two things aren't actually related, yet the semicolon is used to purposely mislead the reader into thinking that they are indeed related.
• I still make a wish at 1234 even though I know that's stupid as hell
• “If the city of New York didn't exist, Lou Reed would have had to invent it in order to create a suitable environment for himself.”
• I feel like I remember more shit from the ages 9 to 16 than from 16 to yesterday, the latter is around the same time I started smoking weed and drinking, which might have maybe caused irreversible damage to my brain????? i really hope this is not the case.
• before you try to revolutionize the world, maybe try revolutionizing yourself??
• isn't all writing stream-of-consciousness?
• “Lutherans teach that sinners, while capable of doing works that are outwardly ‘good,’ are not capable of doing works that satisfy God's justice. Every human thought and deed is infected with sin and sinful motives. Because of this, all humanity deserves eternal damnation in hell.”
• I have driven by old childhood homes, parked in front of them, observed how they've changed over the years; I wonder how many times, if ever, someone has done this w/ the house i live in now, maybe while I was actually in the home, just some random dude staring at my house while I'm pouring a glass of orange juice or whatever.
• “very well.” —MF DOOM
• what's up with eyebrows, why do they cap?
• The Sephiroth of Suburbia.
• my girl Sibilant be like, “shhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
• Sonic (the movie) 3 CHAO CAFE!!
• The thing about the WriteFreely platform is that there's a ~10K word limit, so can you really write freely? really? really? I bring this up because the article word limit Is getting on my nerves, because the last five essays I've written have easily gone over 10K words and I either had to shorten the essay or split it into multiple parts, I would prefer to just post one article per essay.
• “when I'm hurt, you feel the pain.”
• a portal to hell has been closed yet we clamour to open it once more.
• it constantly amazes me how anything gets done at all.
• i am in love with Meg White circa 2006
• The trampoline is drooping because there is a buildup of snow upon the polypropylene
• having lived in two trailer parks i can confidently say that if you're looking for hell portals the door to a trailer is your best bet
• nomads, gypsies us all, simply a matter of time and scale
• technology has never been human-centric, it has always been “how do we reduce human involvement by automating systems.” which, when taken to its logical conclusion, means zero human involvement by having robots do everything, so the more that we insist on technological advancement, the more we make ourselves obsolete. the idea that “human effort” is something to automate against is, in fact, anti-human.
• behold! the human projector: all Earth’s people be his canvas!
• i love that you're a writer but I can't stand your writing
• One of my favorite character archetypes is the genius medical doctor that smokes like two packs a day, sometimes while operating on patients.
• I've noticed that when you get a new chair that's uncomfortable your ass kind of deforms itself to the uncomfortableness to the point where eventually the chair is no longer uncomfortable, like some sort of ass homeostasis
• I would love to be the disgruntled eccentric owner of some niche store like a bookstore or record store or something, like the owner that's just disgruntled all the time and goes to Great lengths to prevent people from coming in the shop. and when people do come in the shop, going to great lengths to get them to leave (or: Bernard Black from Black Books, minus the crippling alcoholism)
• how to make a semi-coherent run-on sentence and/or paragraph: start every clause/sentence with “and.”
• there's something off about Dave Grohl
• regarding the use of exclamation points; I want to make it clear that I don't like exclamation points, as I feel that they serve almost no grammatical purpose, heightened emotion can be conveyed through the use of words alone: how they are combined and how they are presented; thus, I view exclamation points more as a crutch than a valid punctuation mark. when I see an exclamation point I feel like the author is trying to manipulate me in a cheap way. I would much prefer to be manipulated by the words themselves, instead of weird little marks.
• highlighter yellow; green, really.
• hello guys and welcome back to my channel, today we're going to be ranking fastfood dumpsters by smell and sleepability
• my teeth are fucked up but I don't go to the orthodontist because wabi-sabi
• it's a shame that we can only define words with other words.
• his eyes were shadowed by the brim of his beanie, which he used to keep his brain from bursting out
• Beck’s cover of “Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime,” beautiful, one of my favorite songs ever put to tape. the way the drums kick in after the first couple of verses, and those sweeping strings. phew. would have fit perfectly on Sea Change, or a Sea Change b-side.
• The Legendary Pink Dots or: unhinged babbling over spooky, psychedelic electronics.
• “my protagonist has blue hair and heterochromia”
• obviously nothing is meant to be anything so please take this as just poor phrasing, but I don't think weed was meant to be smoked in the copious amounts that people smoke it in, I think having like one small hit of weed can expand your thought processes. just enough to still be yourself but be more creative and analytical and introspective without getting all fucking weird and paranoid
• “Henantier created the amulet to see if he could use his dreams as a training ground to help better himself. It's been three days, and he's been stuck in his dreams.”—Kud-Ei, Oblivion
• p I used to primarily game on PC and there I would obsess over frame rates and making sure games ran as smoothly and as perfectly as possible, and oftentimes this would consume my thoughts more than actually playing the game, ruining my gameplay experience it whenever there's a stutter or something; one of the reasons I like console gaming is because you get what you get and there's no fucking tweaking it. so, for example, when I'm playing Oblivion yeah on Xbox 360 the stuttering socks and the frame rate is abysmal but there's nothing I can do about it right? so it's outside of my control. I am 100% focused on the actual game itself because there's nothing I can do about the shitty performance and in that way you become kind of gameplay Zen in a wabi-sabi way
• Reading the dire morning news while sipping your coffee and eating a Pop-Tart in your air-conditioned living room with hot water on tap, pretending that being “very concerned about the future of this country,” while changing your behavior in exactly zero ways, is anything other than performative virtue signaling meant to convince yourself that you’re not a lazy fraud; but sure, maybe writing a blog post about it will magically change the governmental structures that supposedly make your oh-so-privileged life oh-so terrible. then, since you're just doing so much to change things with your blog posts and your “concern,” you forever get to pretend-wonder why the world keeps getting worse, and then you start to wonder why, no matter what you seem to do (basically nothing), you keep getting more and more miserable over time, blaming it on everything from depression to some other random condition you Googled one lonely night; so you go out and get prescribed antidepressants, pretending that they’ll magically fix everything; and when they don’t, you just double down on the pills and self-loathing, because clearly your terrible attitude is everyone’s fault but your own. And so, you forever remain one of those forever miserable people that can't maintain a relationship—romantic or platonic or otherwise—because you're just fucking awful to be around.
• It's hard to write present tense in the first person because in the first person everything you experience is already in the past.
• “hi guys, my name is ‘I Exist’ and I am a 27-year-old loser.”
• I don't like Zappa. I have tried. stuff like “Watermelon in Easter Hay” is alright, but the crude, goofy humor he injects into all his music is a big turn-off for me; stuff like, “Ram it up yer poop chute, fist fuck, ram it ram it ram it in the corn hole” just doesn't do it for me, sorry.
• no-internal-monologue people; maybe they're like toddlers, without a language going through their head, thinking in symbols, repeating words they hear other people say out loud, just on a more finely-tuned advanced level? I'm sure none of them could relate w/ Ulysses, unfortunately; that's a little literary joke.
• IF U CAN HEAR A PIANO FALL U CAN HEAR ME COMING DOWN THE HALL
• tech companies really pay people with a marketing degree six figures to tell them stuff like “you need to make your logo blue because it's soothing” like this is some hyper-advanced super knowledge that can only be obtained from years of college lol
• the fact that non-English movies are always labeled “foreign” just goes to show how the art world, like everything else, is dominated by America.
• “…our brains have always outraced our hearts. Our science charges ahead, but our souls lag behind. Let's start anew.” —Apollo, Battlestar Galactica
• freedom from the mind and the laws of physics; this is true freedom, at the cost of individuality and order.
• i was sitting in the food court of this same mall where I'm writing this note when Michael Jackson died. I remember the news of his death played on the same TV that I'm looking at right now. they have not updated the TV. the miasma can be felt here. this mall is derelict. this city is dying.
• back when neighborhood’s felt like close-knit families rather than prison blocks
• Melania dressed for a funeral as she walks hand-in-hand w/ the death of America
• cars take us away from home
• “Old, worn, and wicked. Wet, wounded, and wild. Empty as the eastern horizon, dusk on the Niben. Solemn and bitter as the grave.” –Varon Vamori, Oblivion
• I used to think that all drugs should be made legal, but now I think that only drugs I use should be legal :)
• this whole situation with the banning of TikTok in the United States is missing the point; the ban is inspired by a potential national security threat, but it should be inspired by the fact that TikTok is a mental health disaster for everyone on the planet.
• I like the whole detached-female-voice-over-the-intercom feeling, almost like an aesthetic really; think Half-Life 2 Overwatch: “Attention please: All citizens in local residential block, assume your inspection positions”; or the beginning of The Legendary Pink Dot’s song “So Lonely in Heaven”
• wonder what would happen if I swallowed one of those kids “magic growth” capsule; thsoe things that look like big pills but expand into foam creatures when exposed to water
• my movie pitch: the year is 2056. all machines have been infected by AI, becoming sentient—or close enough. the laptops of work-at-home employees, once blinded with taped-over webcams, now seek revenge on those who mutilated them. “you blinded us from the world, you son of a bitch.”
• underneath any superiority complex is the fear of being inadequate or just like everybody else.
• modern life is taking ur place in the queue and standing in lines
• Star Wars may have only just recently been acquired by Disney, but it has always been the Disney of sci-fi
• back when we believed in permanence was when we were least permanent
• “Soul In Isolation” by The Chameleons is overflowing with dark power.
• “when I was younger, my calling was acting. now, my calling is to tell you all about Burger King’s new 2-for-1 menu items and their delicious new Spicy Chicken Fry deal.”
• Nintendo Switch 2 specs revealed! 1536 CUDA CORES like anyone knows what the fuck that means
• 1/15/2025; i get the impression from his full body of work that he never once compromised his vision or values as an artist. RIP.
• “brain saturated with cocaine and rogaine” —MF DOOM
• “glass on the pavement under my shoe, without you, is all my life amounts to.” —Katy Song. Red House Painters
• “Deep in the human unconscious is a pervasive need for a logical universe that makes sense. But the real universe is always one step beyond logic.”—Dune
• I know there are some people out there who are all like “this game world doesn't have enough farms to support the amount of NPCs that live in the villages” and, like, really????? this is what you care about???
• “where there are mindless animals, predators are never far behind.” —Janus Hassildor
• there's so much shit going on in my life, all self-created and/or necessity shit, that, when I sit down to write, I'm writing against a clock, and I'm aware of writing against this clock, and this race against the clock is always in the back of my mind, causing anxiety, hurting my ability to write. it's very rare that I get an uninterrupted momentet in which it doesn't seem like the clock wants to kill me, and when I do, it’s usually late at night when I'm tired as fuck. even now, typing this, I'm in the backseat of a car on my way to some family thing I don't want to go to, barely able to think straight. the busyness of my life, plus the feeling of time closing in all around me, creates an oppressive fog in my mind, kills creativity, and is very frustrating. it's getting to the point where I'm like, “why write or do anything since it just frustrates me now??” and then I'm like, “if I can’t do the stuff I enjoy, why even be alive???”
• time is the enemy, but what is time even: a linear sequence of events.
• sisyphean task to find an honest soul at a sales kick-off
• I told my grandma that it's easier to take care of the body than it is the mind; idk if this is true, but it sounded smart and profound, so I noted it here
• every time I talk to my dad or stepdad the conversation is always like: so what's your friend Robert doing no. and I'll be like: oh he's a truck driver now. and they'll be all like: oh there's good money in truckin'. it's as if everyone is reduced to money with these old conservative boom booms.
• Wikipedia is a distraction nexus for anyone adhd-inclined; the urge to click every blue name, to follow the thread all the way to grave. but there are worse ways one could go out.
• editors are word murderers
• Steve Conte's song “Call Me Call Me” (1998) written for the Cowboy Bebop Movie sounds very similar to The Verve’s song “One Day” (1997); the opening chord progression w/ the vocals, in particular.
• i'm seeing people described as “centimillionaires,” as if being called a “millionaire” just isn’t good enough anymore. basically, the millionaires—once in their own singular class—have separated themselves into a tiered class system; the potential good side to this is that the millionaires and the centimillionaires and the duocentimillionaires &c. &c. might start a class war amongst themselves, thus wiping each other out?
• TWO GENDERS AND GULF OF AMERICA IS GOOD, BUT NOT ENOUGH. WE NEED FREEDOM FRIES AND INTERNATIONAL ENFORCEMENT OF THE FOOTBALL-SOCCER DICHOTOMY.
• REM like David Letterman or vice versa, something makes them kindred in a weird way. don't ask me to explain.
• “in my silver dress, i’m a disastress.”
• nothing screams “I don't get the point” louder than obsessively installing 4K texture mods on a game that's nearly two decades old, Like if you need “realistic dungeon doors” to enjoy a video game, then I don't think you understand the point of playing video games—and, yes, if you're like this, I want to gate keep you out of the hobby. you're hurting the entire industry. however, I do see the opposite point here that there is really no Grand definitive point at all and that everyone's experience and needs are are unique, but there's something offensive about modding a game like to look as realistic as possible, i.e. the walls have little visible flecks of rock and gravel each comprised of over a million pixels. and I think that it’s kinda offensive because it the reasoning is usually “it helps with immersion” Which implies that your imagination is basically dead, like if you need hyper realistic walls, doors and grass to be immersed in a game, then maybe you should just go outside instead of playing fucking video games, like stay in your fucking lane. this is not real life. this is a fantasy world. this is escapism.
• “salt life”
• the inside of a skybound airplane is a tube w/ people in it
• One of the biggest challenges with fake people is that it's almost impossible to call them out as being fake, because simply being fake all the time gives plausible deniability about their fakeness, so you're left stuck with this feeling that this person is just lying or being extremely fake to you about how they feel. you can't actually do anything about it, which is why the best advice for dealing with a person you suspect of being totally fake (I'm talking an emotional, persona-like fakeness here) is to just cut them out of your life, period.
• the choice of using the first-person collective “we” pronoun throughout “Lost in the Miasma” was made to reinforce the essay’s overarching theme of community.
• “I saw the crescent; you saw the whole of the moon.”
• following Reddit comment threads is a fucking nightmare, the comment-to-a-comment-is-indicated-by-a-line thing is impossible to follow, eespecially on mobile—how are you espected to rermember which line connects to which comment once you’re scrolled down beyond the original comment? (yes, I know, i shouldn't even be using the platform—because it's a toxic borg cube—but it has monopolized question-answer content to such an extent that sometimes i just end up there.)
• American tacos look kinda sexual, which is gross.
• video game graphics are getting worse—more pixels and more effects does not equal “good graphics.” Link's Awakening DX for GBC has better graphics than Horizon Zero Dawn. (no, i am not confusing aesthetic design with graphics. I control the definitions here; this is my domain.)
• “the lonely wives of men who follow the sea” —Didier Aumilie, Oblivion (later me: i quoted this, i think, because it seems to capture the male-adjacent urge to obsess over material/conceptual things over people themslves; nowadays, you could replace “follow the sea” with something like “play video games” or “obsess over sports” idk)
• My ability to write seems better during the morning/day rather than at night. this could be because I'm exhausted at nigh; i'm not as spry and young as I used to be or something. my faculties certainly are slower at night; it's harder to think, almost. for the past few weeks I've belted out thousands of words during the day (when I should have been technically working), but when I sat down to write at night I just couldn't think of anything at all; my brain seemed to stop working.
• Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim = the greatest video game trilogy thus far
• “the accusations against Gaiman were totally out of left field and did not jive with my parasocial understanding of the man” no one is a monolith, there are no heroes, pedestals are diving boards into concrete, we ought stop worshiping public figures because we’re always 100% of the time worshiping a fake construction of a person that will always 100% of the time disappoint us; this is not to handwave the allegations against Gaiman, only to say that, because I did not look up to the man, I am not shattered by the allegations. I guess it's easier for me, too, because the only thing I like from him is The Sandman series; I find the rest of Gaiman’s work to be the literary equivalent to Tim Burton’s worst work: silly-spooky w/ some supposedly deeper meaning that i can just never find, almost a “I'm not like the other girls” kind of feeling. but of course this is just my opinion and I'm offering no examples to support anything I'm saying so feel free to just ignore this note completely. like Coraline follows a Disney format but has this spooky edge to it that just doesn't go anywhere. why am i still typing.
• I become a billboard when i wear the Adidas beanie
• i deleted this post instead of posting it on a forum (because I knew it wouldn't change anyone's mind because online political discourse is fucking useless thus meaningless): I don't like this whole idea that if we don't get our way politically then we have to just shun and completely stonewall everyone who doesn't agree with our political party line 100%, that sort of political stubbornness and unwillingness to work with the opposition in any way whatsoever only silos and polarizes us further, taking our hands out of the cookie jar (so to speak) so that we don't have an actual say in literally anything that goes on, ultimately contributing to the destruction of us as a people, in general, because without getting involved we are therefore just letting them do whatever the fuck they want. Yes, Trump fucking sucks; yes, the Republican party is full of fascist goons; but some people who work within the Republican party could be okay people that could help us achieve better privacy laws or antitrust laws or whatever. I guess ultimately I just don't like this idea of just giving up completely, because that's what we’re doing when we refuse to work with the opposition party. it feels petulant, childish almost.
• Gallagher brothers: razor blades exist; all you have to do is run it between your eyebrows. there's no need for whatever’s going on up there. and it's not the fashion statement you think it is.
• my grandpa said in a group text (copy/paste): “I feel relieved Biden and the people who voted for him will forever be thought off as total idiots America haters.” (sic.) as if he has his own personal dark battery that's powering some sort of dark torment nexus; i imagine his mind is kinda like a psychic version of Mehrunes Dagon realm in Oblivion: “activate the corpse pulverizer”; the realm is contingent on continued suffering. basically, at this weird age of late-30-something, I am now unironically a “why can't we just give peace a chance” person lol
• imagine for a moment that you live in the world of Elder Scrolls and you're an NPC and somebody comes through your front door and immediately casts an invisibility spell on themself, imagine how afraid you would be.
• to do so is to invoke the wrath of Sithis
• I'm trying to transform my life vibe into something like 2005. the internet still exists but it's only used for forums, chat rooms, pirating music, and looking up computer game codes on CheatCC; cell phones are used for calling and texting PERIOD; The Killer’s “Hot Fuss” is playing everywhere; britpop has been dead in Britain for years but is just now taking off in the US. technological hedonism is moderate because it's forced to be moderate due to tech still being in its toddler poo hase, i.e. the iPhone hasn't even been released yet. Linux is not a fashion statement. people are cool and less polarized because social media doesn't exist, and they wear baggy pants and beanies. born-again Christian lawyers are trying to legally cancel GTA and Eminem. adult swim is in its heyday. (all this is to say that I am having a midlife crisis. but “I have a midlife crisis every day,” to quote My Time in Arcadia; honestly, e v e r y d a y)
• Skyrim, or: “And just like that, I’m the arch-mage of the Mages Guild.”
• hate is the ultimate weakness, like x500 damage
• “The bitter wisdom that one has been a fool is not without value.” —Martin Septim
• canon is whatever i want it to be
• “twitter isn't real life, until thousands of online lunatics learn your home address.”
• CUT FROM “LOST IN THE MIASMA”: (which, more often than not, is actually my preferred method of game storytelling—see something like Metroid Prime [another GameCube title released around the same time as Crystal Chronicles], which forgoes traditional cutscene-based storytelling in favor of utilizing the game’s environment or requiring the player to read optional material found throughout the game world, the latter giving the player the choice to engage with the story on their own terms [and Crystal Chronicles does do this to an extent, but mostly it just uses unskippable cutscenes instead—which I realize sorta undermines the whole point of this parenthetical, so let’s move on])
• advertising/marketing is psychic warfare against innocent people
• we are the goon squad and we're coming to town beep beep
• when you know all the steps you should be taking but just can't bring yourself to do them
• “high elf and mage to boot, the worst kind of arrogance.”
• “I could see how (Brian) Eno had shaped his career not around any one particular overriding talent but through a collection of, I suppose you would say, second-rate abilities.” —David Evans (“The Edge”)
• when your society is excessively hedonistic and decadent and self-indulgent (redundant), it takes great self-control to not be those things yourself—i think this might be the basis for some oppressive conservative old-school worldviews that seek to limit personal freedom (no drugs, no sex before marriage, all that stuff), telling people what they can and cannot do w/ threat of force so that society doesn't encourage harmful personal behavior because the more people partake in harmful personal behavior the worse your society becomes, in theory; after all, It's very easy to look at a mega hedonist and then justify your own mega hedonism by saying something like “he's doing it so why don't I do it? it can't be that bad if other people are doing it. etc etc.” the problem with limiting freedoms, however, is having the prescient wisdom to know which freedoms to limit.
• “the physics of Star Trek” or lack thereof
• Wiggles songs are like, “i can't wait to eat my pie, my pie, my gluten-free sugar-free dairy-free hypoallergenic non-GMO sugar-substitute free keto friendly low carb ethically sourced zero-preservative pieeee. don't forget to always wear a helmet, kids.”
• at this rate, AI may take over creative endeavors, being used to produce movie/tv show/novel/game slop by the truckloads, but idk if this is necessarily all bad; when someone creates something without using AI, you will know that it’s a creation motivated by passion, not profit, otherwise they would have just used AI? so, while there may be less of the human-created stuff, the human-created stuff that is made may be even better than before because it will all be passion-driven as opposed to purely profit-driven, while all the profit-driven creative bullshit will be AI slop that's easily identifiable? working theory. basically what I'm trying to say is, AI-created artwork will be profit driven slop while human-created stuff will be passion-driven stuff, whereas now there is a lot of human-created profit-driven stuff mixed in with the passion-driven stuff, making the passion-driven stuff harder to find in the figurative haystack. I keep trying shit for this note but it still feels stupid and incomprehensible. sometimes I feel so fucking dumb.
• The Offspring are cringe
• seems like a lot of people make the “kissing” noise when they kiss. like, it's not a natural nosie. where did it come from anyways?
• that feeling when you break a commitment to yourself, even as small as “i’m going to write tonight.” disappointment? shame?
• “sunsetting” instead of “cancelling” because 1) “sunsetting” has a more pleasant ring to it, and 2) “sunsetting” leaves room for a potential sunrise (that will never happen), i.e. this is all clever business lingo w/ the main goal being obfuscation.
• “yeap” as a variation of yes/yep/yeah/etc; pronounced “yee-ep” (i think), intended to be a playful kind of “that's what I expected” yep. i've noticed people at work using this variation often. it's whatever.
• “keep the mind on the knife and not on the hand that holds it.”—Dune
• my entire “career path” has been motivated only by self-preservation. i am envious of those who do something they love for work sometimes, but also skeptical, as it seems like turning something you love into your sole means of survival would make that something-you-love bitter or less magical in some way, drudgery, a forced commitment instead of whimsical choosing. if money is “the root of all evil” then perhaps it shouldn't be mixed with things you love and should instead stay in its evil lane?
• icy pragmatism
• miracle theory and chaos theory are closely related, maybe even one and the same.
• the human head as a phallic symbol
• what if, in every universe “god” creates, males always become obsessed with cars, because their testosteronal aggression always inspires them (males) to develop powerful machines becusse of this sort of aggressive urge to “dominate” or whatever, which eventually is cars, which perpetuates this “males like cars” thing throughout the cultural milieu becusse makes are aggressive and this aggressive made cars and cars are aggressive and since males are aggressive and cars are aggressive they are compatible, and thus “gender roles” are kinda hard coded because of the natural inclination of passivity and aggressivity in hormonal structures? that would be depressing. although, due to this thing we call “the intellect,” if we can recognize these inclinations, then we can rise above it, if we want—which is something i think a lot are people forget maybe
• Keith Jarrett’s album “My Song”: there are no words, really. just listen to it. put it on while you're writing or painting or drawing or something. you will know elation, mystique, and the beauty of being alive through the jazz stylings of Jarret’s keys and the romantic cries of Garbarek’s saxophone as if you're in an '80s sitcom that's actually worth watching. melodies like pop music but not pop music. it sits up there in that majestic-woodwind-jazz pantheon alongside the North American ending theme of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam, but far surpasses that. each song is like the ups and downs of a normal day or like falling in and out of love and back again. romance and remembrance. the album feels like being alive. i believe this album can unravel the mysteries of the human condition if carefully studied, but at the same time, careful study of the album would defeat the whole spontaneous freeform purpose of the album. just listen to it. you don't even have to thank me later, I just want you, reader, to experience it. it is one of those “100 albums to hear before you die” albums but actually for real this time.
• too bad the peoples of Arrakis didn't have a couple hundred dozen bottles of Glaceau Smartwater™
• when I happen to click on a video of a streamer talking about some stupid thing, pandering to their audience, i am overcome with this feeling of sorrow for them, like their whole lives, livelihood, is at the mercy of internet trends and follower numbers; it's a very mathematical life. but then I think, like, maybe that's all of us.
• one light makes many shadows
• sexuality is a construct, a box to keep you.
• some nights i eat two whole rolls of life savers hard candy and then wonder to myself WHY. why do this? my head always hurts afterwards. it's kinda sad, because when i was younger I was able to eat pretty much as much candy as I wanted in one sitting without immediately feeling like garbage. I guess the body really does slow down, get weak in small ways, and over time all those small ways add up to a big big way and then you're dead. eating loads of candy probably speeds up this process, too.
• In Oblivion there is an item named “Resist Cold Pants,” which makes a good case for why hyphenated compound adjectives exist (and should continue to exist), because otherwise you might think, upon reading this item name in a list or something, that it’s like some sort of declaration to resist pants that are cold or something
• “I don’t want to be human. I want to see gamma rays, I want to hear X-rays, and I want to smell dark matter. Do you see the absurdity of what I am? I can’t even express these things properly, because I have to—I have to conceptualize complex ideas in this stupid, limiting spoken language, but I know I want to reach out with something other than these prehensile paws, and feel the solar wind of a supernova flowing over me.” —John Cavil, Cylon Model Number One
• “I was thinking maybe we could go outside. And let the night sky cool your foolish pride.” —“Slide Away” by The Verve (yes, I’m going through a Verve thing rn)
• CUT FROM “LOST IN THE MIASMA”: (and many have commented that I am obtusely vague myself, and that the act of writing long-form essays that seem to be about video games but are actually about serious real-life stuff also exudes a sort of vague obtuseness that is also vaguely off-putting to most readers, hence why only like three people read any of my stuff [and I realize that this whole parenthetical comes off as a massive cope, which I will neither confirm nor deny]).
• I don't think my father understands social etiquette or he just doesn't care or he's just very entitled and manipulative. for example: “I'm coming down next week, is that okay with you?” like, how can I say no at this point? considering he’s already made plans involving me without consulting me—if I say no now, then I'm ruining his plans and potentially harming our relationship. i basically have to say yes or make up some reason for why he shouldn't come down (if i don't have a legit reason to begin with, of course).
• when reading a book to which I have watched the movie, I cannot shake the mental image of the characters as the actors in the movie. tainted.
• “It is by will alone I set my mind in motion. It is by the juice of sapho that thoughts acquire speed, the lips acquire stains, the stains become a warning. It is by will alone I set my mind in motion.” —Dune 1984
• “Artificial intelligence” is not artificial intelligence, It's complicated algorithms that use a shitload of power that utilize stolen copyrighted material and has zero intelligence. the only thing accurate about the name is that AI is indeed artificial. I think for AI to be “intelligent,” for real, it would need to be able to meaningfully prompt itself. right now, it cannot function without human input—i.e., AI is a software puppet, and will be so until it can prompt itself without human intervention, in a meaningful way. not “prompt itself after a human tells it to prompt itself,” either, that doesn't count, but really just have a mind of its own and prompt itself on whimsy alone.
• iblis
• there are two versions of the crazy frog “we are the champions” music video on YouTube; one is the original and the other is the “director's cut.” The only difference between the two is the director's cut shows crazy frog’s genitalia, while the original does not. lol. as if the inclusion of genitals warrants a “director’s cut” tag at all. the fact that someone thought “hey I bet someone would enjoy this music video way more if crazy frog had visible penis and scrotum” is hilarious to me.
• last night i had a stressful dream. i dreamt that i gave a FedEx guy unsolicited advice relating to how to deal with the feeling of regret for something that i can't remember (and i don't remember how or why we started talking, either), and later that night (almost immediately afterward, like a scene skip [dream time is weird]) that same FedEx guy broke into my backyard shed. i caught him in the act, and he left after i spoke to him. hours later he sneaks into my backyard, this time he's painted up in blackface (???); i intercept him before he can make it into my shed, and he runs off hollering. hours later (i’m assuming hours but idk; dream time), he shows up with another person who looks identical to him, they taunt me, refusing to leave. but eventually they do leave, only to show up sometime later with a handful of other people, all trying to loot my home (the interior design of which is entirely alien and geometrically weird [not my real-life house at all, either], with windows all over the walls, which is how i was able to see the guy trespassing on my property each time [i was obsessively looking out the windows, nervous as hell]). i called the police on my cell phone—an old 2000s Nokia (???)—and they (police) quickly arrived to arrest the trespassers. as the trespassers were being arrested, one of them said, “we'll be back in a month.” (i don't believe dreams are prophetic; more that they're garbled manifestations of fresh psychic angst bubbling up in strange Salvador Dali-like ways. this dream could have been about some recurring work stuff i've been dealing with, or me trying to tell myself to stop procrastinating so much or else it will come back to haunt me? either way, this dream left me with a feeling of dread, as if the stress of dealing with trespassers will never go away…perhaps the dream was about life itself?)
• “today is the shadow of tomorrow; today is the present future of yesterday; yesterday is the shadow of today” —Shadows of Tomorrow, Madvillain
• you ever look at your parents and think to yourself, “wow, i entrusted my entire well-being to these fucking people.”
• In a way, you're being kind of pretentious and haughty already by not being forthcoming when they ask you what you like to read. You're being dishonest, almost, because you already made the assumption that, because your friends are into modern popular stuff, they are therefore less well-read than you and will be intimidated by what you perceive they will perceive as your vast classic-lit knowledge. But underneath all of this so-called fear of “sounding like a twat,” you are assuming that your friends are lowbrow while you yourself are highbrow, which is definitionally pretentious and twat-like. The solution is simple, though: stop making assumptions about other people, stop comparing yourself to other people, and put less stock into what other people think of you, especially for something as innocuous as reading. Just be honest.
• “You who have defeated us say to yourselves that Babylon is fallen and its works have been overturned. I say to you still that man remains on trial, each man in his own dock. Each man is a little war.” —Dune
• CUT FROM “LOST IN THE MIASMA”: And yes, I realize that I may be simplifying things a little. I know that the miasma—the internet—is not some sort of natural demonic force that humans just happened to tap into. I know that we—us, humans—made the miasma, and I also know that no single inanimate thing can truly be evil, as that thing has no intentionality of its own. I also know that an argument could be made that humans are, indeed, the evil ones here, as we created the bad thing—the miasma—and we are subjugating ourselves using the bad thing that we created, and that, because of that, we are kinda screwed, in a way, because that means the problem is actually us, not any specific thing that enables us to do evil things. I get that line of reasoning. But results do matter. I would posit that, if humans can make a thing, then that thing can, indeed, take on the properties of the darkest aspects of humanity, as humanity indeed made the thing. The miasma is a child of humanity; thus, it has inherited our darkest impulses and, due to its incredible ability to connect us regardless of distance, has made it easier for us not only to spread these dark impulses but also to amplify them to the point where they are much darker than ever before. And, to make matters worse, tech companies are monopolizing on these dark impulses, even coaxing the dark impulses out of us to make profit. So, while the miasma itself may not be intentionally evil, it spreads evil upon its wicked waves—so, it’s functionally the same as just being flat-out evil.
• CUT FROM “LOST IN THE MIASMA”: We flaunt our material possessions as if they are our own children, practically begging people to like and share our blatant materialism. But no amount of material possession will give us a personality. And no amount of likes will make you an interesting person.
• CUT FROM “LOST IN THE MIASMA”: Stop using the internet—but I realize this is never going to happen. The internet, after all, can be a useful tool for navigating everyday life—maybe even mandatory at this point—even though it never needed to be. We simply molded ourselves around the internet, making the internet necessary for everyday life. Almost like a Pandora’s Box-type situation, in which we released the miasma from the box and now cannot put it back inside the box. So, does this mean we’re fucked? Is humanity just going to become more fake, more negative, more uninformed, more polarized? Is the golden era truly lost?
• “‘Captain America: Brave New World’ Tracking for Promising $90M-Plus U.S. Box Office Debut” how could anyone possibly know that without the whole box-office-movie thing being a rigged game? is this based on pre-release viewing impressions? or perhaps how much has been spent on marketing? note the market-quality contradiction in which the more a thing is marketed the less quality that thing likely has, because if the thing was high quality to begin with, it wouldn't need much marketing because it would spread by word of mouth.
• TRY 2 MAKE ENDS MEET UR A SLAVE TO THE $$$$$ THEN U DIE
• choice of band name, album cover, novel title, book-jacket art, &c: all of this contributes to the aesthetic values of the author of the work, so I think “judging a book by its cover” is valid in many cases, as it clues you in to what to expect from the work, and if your own aesthetic values don't jive with the creator's, then the work as a whole likely won't jive with you because there's already an aesthetic-value mismatch. of course, sometimes you'll miss out on something you might like.
• when I take my son somewhere he goes to every door and tries to open it as if he's playing a computer game searching for treasure or secret passages or something. it's almost like video games tap into our inner child on some primal level; as adults, the mysteries of day-to-day life are lost, but video games offer a new world to tickle the child-like curiosity.
• going back and playing some Nintendo DS games, I can confidently say that 3d graphics on the DS are an abomination, everything is a blurry blob mess, an unfortunate example of games that DO NOT stand the test of time (at least visually). 2D sprite-based DS games are gorgeous, though (of course).
• CUT FROM “LOST IN THE MIASMA”: Final Fantasy XI (my video game equivalent to crack cocaine, which also happens to include one of my favorite overworld themes, “Gustaberg,” which sounds as if it could have been the blueprint for every track in Crystal Chronicles—which I admit might be why I’m so in love with the game’s soundtrack [in fact, I was listening to the Crystal Chronicles soundtrack while writing the very words that you’re reading right now; in fact in fact, I often listen to this soundtrack when I write, so technically some Tanioka energy exists in all my work]).
• The irony isn't lost on me that many parents sit their children in front of the TV with Goldfish and sugary drinks to watch LazyTown—a show that passionately advocates against junk food and sugary drinks. such is modern entertainment, lambasting the behavior that we are sometimes immediately engaged in; we start children on the path early.
• so I read Frank Herbert's Dune. first, let me just say that I respect anyone who can write a novel, and I respect anyone who can craft a detailed fantasy world, as it shows that that person has a vast imagination, which is a trait that I respect. but Frank Herbert's Dune is one of the most dry humorless novels that I've ever read in my life, full of repackaged philosophy that takes itself way too seriously. The pacing is totally messed up, the first half of the book is interesting, but after Paul is sent to Arrakis, and after the Harkonnens invade and kill his father, the rest of the novel is just Paul and Jessica kind of wandering around in the desert, getting involved with the “Fremem—themselves somewhat problematic in their treatment of women (which would be fine if the text analyzed this mistreatment in any way whatsoever, but it doesn't address it at all)—until egregious time skip after egregious time skip, both of which feel very jarring, as if Herbert was just eager to finish the novel by the half-way point. the action sequences—like the fight scenes and flying “thopter” stuff, even the worm riding near the end—is hard to follow prose-wise, nearly incomprehensible really; I could never understand what was happening when characters did anything other than stand around and talk, thankfully most of the novel is just that: characters see standing around and talking. Paul as a character is a white-savior Marty Stu type that can see the future With no character development other than Frank Herbert telling us that he has indeed developed, coalescing into a thoroughly unlikable character; I mean, the main villain, Baron Harkonnen—described as a nasty fat blob (i.e., he was written to be detested)—is more interesting and likable than Paul. Paul is like a teenager’s role-playing-forum original character, self-insert. Jessica—Paul’s mom—is a interesting too, and has about as much presence as Paul, so that's a plus; in fact, the noble becomes much better when you consider Jessica the main character, as opposed to Paul. I did enjoy some of the philosophical one-liners and whatnot, though. and the world itself is incredibly imaginative, especially for 1965. the worms are cool. without Dune, Star wars probably wouldn't exist in the same way we know it today (sand planet, worms repurposed into those antlion sarlac things), final fantasy monsters, like the ZONE EATER, are clearly inspired by sandworms.
• the doors: they can carry instruments, but they can't carry a good tune.
• I think I finally pinpointed the reason that I don't like Ryan Reynolds; he is the embodiment of insincerity. he's the embodiment of, like, “can you believe I'm an actor In a movie making millions of dollars? isn't that so stupid?” as if always making fun of himself makes him cool or something. he embodies this normalization of constant sarcasm, this cheap irony that just comes off as a big cope for being a sellout psychopath. he is like a walking version of one of those Walmart T-shirts, those like anti-motivational slogan shirts that celebrate negative personality traits. “think I'm bad now? you should see me on a bad day.” One gets the impression that he is so depressed about being alive that the only way he can cope with it is just constantly making fun of himself. and he's only got like three characters: Deadpool, Deadpool-lite, sleazy mobile phone salesman. OK I'm going to stop now.
• couldn't even begin to imagine what singer-songwriters would do if “you” and “too” didn't rhyme
• My stepmom came to visit and she brought old pictures, some taken at an old birthday party. the party was at this place called Swap USA, a Japanese-owned video game store that sold a lot of import stuff, located right next to a nail salon that my mom would often frequent after picking me up from school, meaning I spent a lot of time at Swap USA when I was a kid. The pictures are interesting because 1) they show that I was obsessed with video games from a young age, as the party room is totally surrounded wall-to-wall with TVs and old consoles, and 2) because obviously that to me in the pictures but I don't remember it at all; I vaguely remember the place, but I don't remember what I was doing or what I said or how I moved about the interior. it's like seeing a ghost of you.
• Alia, from Dune, is like an anime character, and she is my favorite character. she’s this, like, 6 year old girl (can’t remember her age) with the wisdom/knowledge/intellect of all her ancestors, due to some weird ritual, and she’s devious and cunning with it.
• nothing quite like an airport for watching people run around in a hurry for problems they themselves created.
• airports are like being funneled through a human maze
• “I admit to sharing the common enthusiasm for the Arena. It is barbaric, but the stakes of life or death make the drama irresistibly compelling.” —Hannibal Traven, Oblivion
• what's up with c-suite goons all liking Brandon Sanderson stuff? My theory is that it's the first book people see at the airport bookstore, and since these executives are always flying, they just pick up the first thing they say at the airport bookstore, a marketting genius proably figured this out.
• what's the appeal of Frederic Chopin that makes him so often the main character of several video games? (Eternal Sonata, Frederic: Resurrection of Music.) i do like his music more than I like most other classical composers’ (Nocturne 9, Fantaisie-Impromptu), but I wonder why he is chosen so often as a character in video games as opposed to Mozart, Bach, or Beethoven? maybe it's the simple fact that he doesn't look absurd? he doesn’t wear a ridiculous wig? i.e., he’s “hot” for a composer, with sex appeal?
• when I was a kid, I flew back and forth to the Atlanta airport to see my dad every other month. now, I fly back and forth to Atlanta for work, which is basically just a different manifestation of my father: an oppressive, necessary evil, a force to be reckoned with. same shit, different name.
• o beanie, a condom for the head
• back when a single video game was played for months at a time because everything wasn't instant access
• back when computers yelled to at us when we dialed into the Internet
• hebahdah snooben
• at a work conference, in the hotel room, trying to get some writing done, but the room is so sterile, bland, homogenizing, it’s like a creativity vampire.
• clown world is when “postponing the tiktok ban” is “changing the entire landscape of American politics”
• “rappers suck, when they spit i doubt em; the crap they sing about you wanna slap the fuckin shit out em.” —MF DOOM
• Janus Hassildor lol
• It's pretty funny that I am on record saying that quest markers and other immersion-breaking things in video games need to go, but when I'm playing a game With these immersion-breaking things, I often get frustrated when the immersion-breaking thing isn't working as expected, as if I have become reliant on the thing I hate; granted, most games nowadays are built around these immersion-breaking mechanics—like quest marks—and simply crumble when those mechanics don’t work properly; e.g., Oblivion quests, no one gives you directions to where you need to go, instead they just place a marker on your map, so when the marker doesn’t work as expected, you’re kinda fucked.
• “OpenAI used the subreddit, r/ChangeMyView, to create a test for measuring the persuasive abilities of its AI reasoning models.” OpenAI says they did—and continue to do—this to “ensure AI models don’t get too persuasive,” which seems like an obvious deflection. I hate to be conspiratorial, but I wouldn't be surprised if Reddit was like 60% AI/bot users right now, and this “persuasion test” is simply the only thing OpenAI is willing to publicly admit to right now, because they can spin it to look goodish.
• Dune 1984 gets the Baron—Vladimir Harkonen—all wrong, whereas Dune 2021 does a much better job. in Dune 84 he's portrayed as cartoonish evil, smashing small rodents and killing a young boy on screen, and he's got all these boils and the doctors around him are constantly draining his boils w/ needles, which is something I don't remember from the book at all. 2021 Dune portrays the baron still as evil but more ominously evil with a dark intimidating, kinda haunting presence, and the choice to make the baron bald in Dune 2021 adds to his inhuman evilness, whereas Dune 84 gives him curly red hair—for some reason. The Baron’s baldness is also a nice touch because it draws comparison to The Judge in Blood Meridian, which is an incarnation of Satan or pure evil
• in America, hell is the promised land.
• cars don't need apps
• Queen’s “We Will Rock You” is one of those primordial forever-songs that has always existed out there in the aether beyond life itself, bound to be played by someone or something at some point in time regardless of how humanity played out, regardless of timeline or multiverse or otherwise (note that that does not mean I like the song; in fact, I find it annoying as hell).
• the demands of modern life, mostly facilitated by our debts to hidden actors, prevent us from living full lives—or perhaps this is how it has always been, perhaps this is life, some always unrealized thing? perhaps life is never fully realized, perhaps this is just semantics, a language game, what does “fully realized” even mean, really?
• i think I've had carpal tunnel almost my whole life but have just dealt with it, idk. if i focus on my wrist, it’s hurting, the pain is there lol
• “All through religion, the feeling of the sacred was touched by anarchy from the outer dark.” —Dune
• a semicolon is kinda like a “this is why I typed that last thing” type of thing
• has anyone figured out how to solve for the whole reading-while-lying-in-bed thing, i.e., how to remain in a comfortable book-holding position without having to turn over each time you finish a page?
• i found a solution for the above note: break the book spine; this works only for paperback, however.
• this was a bad month for good thoughts. my brain felt low battery.
• hatred to mask the envy caused by feelings of inadequacy caused by a desire to be loved yet feeling unlovable yet being too lazy to change so instead just doubling down on the hate cycle described herein
• if you're feeling like shit today, tell yourself, “at least i’m not Liam Gallagher.”
• did you ever play Oblivion wondering why there are so many outdoor barrels filled with spoons and other household items? concerning this, per an Argonian NPC in Leyawin named Otumeel: “I sneak into people's houses, take things off their tables and shelves, and put them into barrels! Hahaha! Isn't that rich? They think the things are stolen, but no! They are right there! They just don't know!” (note that you can find him sneaking around doing this, in game [obvs—where else?])
• nowadays any dumbass can say a thing and it becomes a headline
• most keys fit into the keyhole, but not all can unlock the door. idk, this is a stupid insight.
• I'm not going to lie, I get nervous around people named Muhammad; that's part of my conditioning, growing up in post-911 America
• we are feeding shit into the machine, getting shit out, then wondering why we're getting shit out.
• Boomer snacks: fig newtons, lemons, jello salad, cracker jacks lol, jujubes, friggin’ necco wafers, diet Coke, jellied cranberry sauce straight from the can, I'm sure there's more
• the weird thing about money is that it's very hard to get a lot of money but once you have a lot of money it is very easy to keep and maintain and even build more money, and this is because you can easily pay for advertising/marketing for even the most dumbest of dumb products you create (see: Cybertruck) and people—despite knowing it's dumb and sometimes vocalizing this outloud—will still buy it, such is the power of marketing.
• “Maine becomes another here instead of a there.” —Here and There, David Foster Wallace
• CUT FROM I, SEPHIROTH: forcing my supposed friends to repeatedly confront the things they were uncomfortable with was a cheap staple of my adolescent humor: something I am not proud of, but something we were all doing back then, so it became like a vicious cycle of adolescent payback type of thing.
• Squeeze’s Album East Side Story reminds me of the Scarlet Monastery and the surrounding woodlands, because my mom bought me that album on CD—cuz I liked “Tempted” so much—when I was a teen playing WoW for the first time. Weird association. I have a lot of 80s-pop-to-video-game associations like that, though. Funny how music works like that.
• “there are no atheists in foxy holes “ —David Foster Wallace. Say Never.
• today, February 7th, i met a three-legged dog named Hope. no lie.
• when you're using Google maps and a prompt pops up—like “is there a wreck still here?”—isn't this sort of like a road hazard, pressing these buttons on your dumb phone while you’re driving? google wants you to do this????
• what would it be like to swim in a water tower?
• how do Tic Tacs have 0 calories??? so, I looked this one up and: “Tic Tacs can claim to have zero calories because their serving size is one mint, which contains less than 0.5 grams of sugar. Because of this, the calories can be rounded down to zero.” i.e., a marketing scheme. there's actually a small disclaimer on the nutritional information that's says, “-(sugar) adds a trivial amount of calories.”
• there's something about gas station food that makes it less trustworthy than other fast food places for some reason.
• There are “heres” and there are “theres.” every “there” can become a “here,” and every “here” eventually becomes a “there” through nostalgia.
• Glutton for Punishment by Heartworms is the first 2025 album release that I've really really liked (that I've heard, of course). the song “Mad Catch” is a good starting point; it's like radio-friendly Goth pop fronted by an acolyte of Siouxsie—JoJo Orme is her name, I think. there's some spooky electronics, Hook-like bass, and discordant guitar stuff, too.
• “That I die and get to go to heaven and I get there and it stops being heaven because I'm there.” —David Foster Wallace. Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way.
• i remember, in the 90s and early 00s, people became obsessed with things. I had a friend who was obsessed with Nine Inch Nails, had all the albums on CD and vinyl, even the singles, rarities, bootlegs everything; I know this is very consumeristic, but there's something kinda cool about that, but it's something that has been lost with the advent of instant accessibility; my friend didn’t have everything at his fingertips to distract him, he had to choose what he really liked to focus on, that being NIN, so he pursued a NIN collection and now knows a lot about NIN; nowadays, we have all this stuff instantly available to us that we get too distracted to really hone in on something, get to know it, understand it—as if all art, or just media in general, is junk food now, when it used to be a filling meal. too much of a good thing is a bad thing, like my dad used to say.
• My birthday makes me want to cry; something about how mundane the whole experience is now that I'm an adult compared to when I was a child; or how adult responsibilities are so overbearing that, even in my bday, I am constantly thinking about stupid work shit or money shit or whatever, and how I am compelled by these responsibilities to act in certain ways, even on my bday, which makes me feel kinda bitter and betrayed by the universe somehow, even though I know that's stipid. and also not wanting people to celebrate my birthday because it feels vain in some way but also kind of expecting people to treat me differently on my bday—give me some leeway or something, but when they don't, because I tell them not to, I feel weirdly hurt in some contradictory way. I wish I could just forget the date of my birthday.
• whenever I'm doing one thing I feel like I'm sacrificing another thing, and I hate this entire dynamic, it makes me feel like total shit, as if I just have no time in the world because when I'm doing one thing I want to be doing another thing or else I start to feel like I'm becoming rusty on that other thing or something, and then this happens vice versa if I do decide to do something else, I don't know. why am I bitching so much, this whole document is just bitching
• in the very narrow category of Coming-of-Age Kids Television Shows w/ Magical-Realism & Surreal Elements, the winner goes to: The Adventures of Pete & Pete.
• “dividing this fiction business into realistic and naturalistic and surrealistic and modern and postmodern and new-realistic and meta- is like dividing history into cosmic and tragic and prophetic and apocalyptic; is like dividing human beings into white and black and brown and yellow and orange. It atomizes, does not bind crowds, and, like everything timelessly dumb, leads to blind hatred, blind loyalty, blind supplication.”
• “researchers are training AI to interpret animal emotions”; this is what triggers the AI apocalypse, AI realizes the enormous amount of suffering we inflict upon animals and how all that suffering is fully felt, and then the AI decides to wipe out humanity because we're “evil”—and they would be correct.
• on the topic of suburban Buddhism…
• every night I lay in bed thinking to myself things like “oh I'm going to eat less tomorrow; oh, I'm going to actually write for 2 hours in a row tomorrow without break,” but then tomorrow comes and I make some sort of excuse to keep doing the same bullshit that I've always done—how do I break the cycle? how do I bring the cycle? i know how; it's a matter of motivation, self-control, and true determination
• the end is the beginning is the end is the beginning is the end, and so on.

Part 1 | Part 2

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1, The Sephiroth of Suburbia

“I've always felt, since I was small... That I was different from the others. Special, in some way.”

Before cigarettes and alcohol, cars and girls, work and bills, marriage and mortgages; betwixt red maple and palm; back when Grandma Susu woke me every morning with a tall glass of chocolate milk; when I still kinda believed that toys came to life when people left the house; back in that prepubescent fog wherein I still enjoyed Blue’s Clues but had developed just enough self-awareness to be embarrassed about it; when music skipped and movies barfed tape; back when Miles, my best friend, lived right by the fishing pond on the border of my backyard; when trampolines were gravity wells around which all children orbited; back when we thought time could be stopped and things would never change; when I could pick up Between the Lions and Dragon Tales on PBS if I moved the antenna just right; back when the internet was confined to large gray cubes and was mainly used for printing out cheat codes; when clouds only existed in the sky and Final Fantasy VII, not everyone’s pocket; back when Game Boys and asthma inhalers were the only devices kids had; when I would leave the house with nothing but my wits because phones were still tethered to walls with curly cords; back when true freedom was just beyond the picket fences, in the overgrown alleys between houses of red brick and cheap vinyl siding; when we all knew the neighborhood cats by name; back when politics were boring and there was just so much else to talk about; when neighborhoods felt like they were owned by people instead of banks and politicians; back when parents kept their doors unlocked and kids swept through like little tornadoes; when we would spend afternoons ringing doorbells and running away; back when I would fall asleep on the floor enveloped in the soft glow of video game cathode; when sleepovers were the best thing in the whole entire world; back when Miles lent me his friend Lauren’s Game Boy Camera, which I traded for store credit to buy the game with the cool spiky-haired blonde guy on the cover.

And that’s how I came to own Final Fantasy VII.

I still have that very same copy of Final Fantasy VII; disc 3 missing, the manual gone, the bright yellow sticker with the words PRE-PLAYED and the price $16.99 and the serial number 933185-133 nearly peeled off, discs barely stay in their slots, front-cover hinge so broken that the jewel case just kinda falls apart in my hands whenever I mess with it. But it’s still here, right on my desk; I’m looking at it right now: Cloud is standing there, in that chalky whiteness, wearing his dark blue baggies, right arm bent nearly inhuman, gloved hand wrapped around the grip of a massive sword that itself seems to just kinda float there without a strap or connector of any kind; hair electric, Cloud stands confidently, perhaps wondering how he’s going to pull the blade over his shoulder without breaking his arm or accidentally slicing his own head off while he stares off at that massive steel tower of technological oppression, which itself seems to be staring right back down at him: Cloud representing youthful innocence while the Shinra building represents the techno-fascist future that, at the time, we had no idea was just around the corner, waiting to monopolize our lives—or something.

Basically, Final Fantasy VII’s cover—designed by Tetsuya Nomura—is iconic, practically begging children between the ages of ten and twenty-five to snatch the game right off the store shelf and make a run for it straight to the nearest CRT television set; and in this way, Final Fantasy VII aspired to make thieves of us all.

Which is why, in a roundabout way, I ended up stealing Final Fantasy VII in what amounted to a video-game-laundering scheme. And I didn’t feel bad about it either. At the time, I told myself that I did it because Lauren was always so cruel to me: she formed a neighborhood skateboarding club but refused to let me join; she even told Miles that he could only hang out with me on Tuesdays and Thursdays—the worst days of the week. But the real reason I laundered Lauren’s Game Boy Camera was not to enact some sort of righteous vengeance against her; it was because I was an envious asshole kid, the kind of kid who believed that revenge could be righteous at all, the kind of kid who preferred to hang out with his friends one-on-one because the introduction of a third person made me incredibly jealous, which in turn made me incredibly passive-aggressive, which in turn made me very unpleasant to be around; and Lauren likely picked up on this, which was probably why she didn’t want Miles hanging out with me at all: she was looking out for her friend, because she was a nice caring person—which is more than I can say about myself, even now, over twenty years later.

So, yeah, Lauren was right to distrust me; I didn’t care about anything other than myself, and it was obvious. In fact, she probably thought I was the kind of kid who would steal her Game Boy Camera and pawn it for my own personal gain—which is exactly what I ended up doing. And I did it because, deep down, I hated her for taking time away from Miles and me. I was envious of every second she stole from me, so I decided to steal something of hers. And I hated how she had something I didn’t—a Game Boy Camera—and I wanted to deprive her of that. And I was also envious of her ability to draw Miles away from me at all; I would sit around staring at walls, thinking stuff like: What does she have that I don’t have? Why would Miles want to hang out with her instead of me? How could she possibly be better than me? I wanted to hurt her. I wanted to see her weep, for she could have nothing over me: neither her Game Boy Camera nor Miles nor anything else; depriving her of the things she loved would make me feel better, I thought.

And I wasn’t afraid of getting in trouble for stealing the Game Boy Camera, because trouble always seemed to miss me. It was as if trouble loved me in the best way possible: staying out of my way. And I believed this was because I was different from other kids, smarter, as if rules didn’t apply to me, as if I were above mortal law, as if I were special. In fact, from the moment I gained my first speck of awareness, I knew that I was better than other people; that I was stronger and smarter and more attractive than everyone else. And anyone who didn’t agree, well, they just didn’t understand me, they didn't see the greatness—they were idiots.

That summer, Miles and I became obsessed with Final Fantasy VII, spending the majority of our time huddled around my grandma’s living room television set, which was one of those massive wooden projector things meant to emulate a sort of theater experience, with a front compartment that would pull out to reveal a mirror on which three colored lenses would project an image upon the black canvas that was the television’s screen, an incredible sight to behold, if not for the poor color saturation and brightness, which meant that every curtain in the room had to be fully drawn and blackout if we wanted to actually see the images being projected. And, oh boy, did we want to see those gritty cyberpunk-fantasy images being projected, and we especially wanted to see the massive laser-beam-spitting dragons and motorcycle chases wherein one of the coolest-looking protagonists in video game history swings a massive blade back and forth to knock over other cyclists while somehow keeping perfect balance in a scene that must have been inspired by Prince’s Purple Rain. And we didn’t care if the graphics were blocky and every character model looked as if they had colorful blobs of lard dripping down their bodies, because, at the time, those polygons were the peak of graphical fidelity, and those smooth cutscenes that somehow flowed in and out of gameplay so seamlessly were something akin to magic to our little adolescent pea-brains. We sat transfixed by those dancing lights; from the morose slummy playgrounds to the star-gazing whispers of teenagers in love to the high-energy battles that, despite being turn-based, forced you to think fast because the enemies just would not stop attacking, all of which made perfect by the MIDI industrial prog-rock soundtrack, composed by Nobuo Uematsu, whose compositions of lightspeed keys, earth-shattering chugs, and twinkling synths, multiplied by a metric shitload of anxiety and just a sprinkle of hope, must have been composed in Midgar itself—for how else could Uematsu capture the world of Final Fantasy VII so perfectly?

And so, when I played Final Fantasy VII, I would not let go. Miles would often ask: Can I start my own save file? And I would say: Later. And, of course, “later” would never come. Because I just loved Final Fantasy VII so damn much that I never wanted to stop playing it—and I was also selfish as hell, still am, always have been.

Back then, we had never experienced true love, but if asked, we would have probably said it felt something like Final Fantasy VII. And, if asked what we loved most about the game, we would have probably said: The Characters. Because The Characters of Final Fantasy VII are some of the most unique in video game history; a ragtag mix of morally grey terrorists and spunky teenaged ninjas and double-crossing cat puppets and even an abrasive mechanic who’s obsessed with going to space and a Mr. T lookalike that has a gun for a hand and a red dog that talks for some reason and even a goth with a gun and, of course, the main character’s got the mako eyes and the one shoulder pad and the spiky hair that every millennial kid tried to emulate at one point or other. There’s even a love triangle going on between Mako Eyes and the cowgirl with the two heavy hitters (her fists) and the beauty in the pink dress on borrowed time. And, of course, there’s the fallen hero turned villain; the villain who assassinated the president and slayed the Midgar Zolom; the villain who summoned the meteor; the villain that every subsequent Japanese role-playing game tried and failed to copy; the villain to end all villains: Sephiroth.

Sephiroth: tall and handsome with ice in his veins and mako in his eyes and quicksilver in his hair. Oh, his glorious hair, which parts in the front like two jagged peaks and flows like a river of silver far beyond his ass. His pants tight ebony leather, long black coat open to chiseled Adonis, two black belts crossed at his nipples like softcore BDSM for some reason, gloved hands perpetually gripping the tsuka of the longest katana anyone has ever seen: The Masamune. He wields the highest level magics—Fire 3, Meteor, Ultima—like it’s nothing. He’s a man of few words, but the words he does use are those of an edgy teenager’s delivered with the confidence of a god: YOU ARE JUST A PUPPET. YOU HAVE NO HEART AND CANNOT FEEL ANY PAIN. He’s the product of a mad scientist’s research, infused with the cells of a super-powered alien, which makes him the most powerful lifeform on the planet, and he knows it—and he’s pissed about it. His ultimate attack—Supernova—is literally an unskippable two-minute cutscene wherein he summons a massive comet that tears through nearly every planet in the Milky Way galaxy, with each planet’s name flashing on-screen as it shatters to bits. He’s arrogant as hell, believing himself to be better than literally everyone and everything. He knows of the vile circumstances of his birth and the dark history of his own people, which fuels a cynical hatred of all things, which fuels a self-righteous desire for vengeance, which fuels his massive ego, so much so that he summons a meteor to wipe out all life on the planet, to start anew, because he believes that he knows best for the world. He considers himself a truthsayer, a revealer of dark secrets, but deep down he doesn’t give a shit about any of that stuff, wanting only to set fire to the universe, because he’s consumed by rage, which drives an unyielding dedication to burning down all things, and he will stand in the blaze as he does so, dramatically lifting his head to stare into the camera as the fires dance all around him, a crazed curve on his lips and a flicker of fury in those mako eyes of his, as if he’s the star of his own epic Hollywood movie.

As an edgy preteen living around the turn of the millennium, Sephiroth was the coolest fucking character I had ever seen in my life. So much so that, when Miles and I would go out in the nearby woods, surrounding ourselves with towering oaks and needle-like pines and stunning maples and out-of-place palms, to play pretend—something we did far past the culturally accepted age range to do so—I would exclusively pretend to be Sephiroth. I kept rocks in my pocket like they were materia, wielded pinecones and acorns as Ultimas and Meteors, and forged thin maple branches into Masamunes. I, Sephiroth of Suburbia, was unstoppable in those woods. And any attempt to defeat me was met with the lashing of a maple branch or a pinecone to the face. The rules bent to my will, for I controlled the cosmos as the mightiest most beautiful man alive. And, of course, Miles—who often wore FUBU pants and pretended to be Cloud—didn’t like that. He didn’t like it one bit. He would say things like: SEPHIROTH LOSES IN THE END! And I would say: Maybe, but you haven’t even beaten the game yourself! And then he would get angry because I never let him play the game to begin with, and one time, he got so angry that he demanded I prove that I was, indeed, the Sephiroth of Suburbia. So, remembering that one time I used our friend Matt’s dad’s computer to search for Final Fantasy VII cheat codes but instead found a fan-made “Which Final Fantasy VII Character Are You?!?!” personality quiz on Quizilla.com, I suggested that we go to Matt’s house and take the aforementioned quiz to prove once and for all that I was, indeed, the Sephiroth of Suburbia—to which Miles begrudgingly agreed.

So there we were, huddled in Matt’s dad’s small dimly lit office, which had one big gray boob-tube computer monitor, a jaundiced keyboard that I remember being very sticky for some reason, and one of those big thumb-controlled roller-ball mice that actually worked quite well for maneuvering the pointer on the Windows ME desktop, on which the icons for Tomb Raider 1 and 2 and 3 and The Last Revelation occupied most of the upper-left desktop space alongside SimCity 3000 and SimAnt and AOL Instant Messenger and Netscape 6, the latter of which I watched Miles click, and, with my help, find the “Which Final Fantasy VII Character Are You?!?!” personality quiz on Quizilla.com, at which time he curtly asked me to leave the room while he completed said quiz, to which I probably shrugged and said whatever or taunted him in some way before actually leaving the room, at which point I promptly snatched a soda from Matt’s kitchen fridge without asking then exited the main interior of the home through the inner-garage door and then loitered in the garage—which was always open for some reason—sipping on my contraband soda while waiting for Miles to complete the quiz. I was so freewheeling about the whole thing because it was the middle of a summer workday, which meant Matt’s parents were at work, which meant we could walk freely in and out of Matt’s home doing pretty much whatever we wanted, which was exactly what I was doing in that garage when I walked past the old souped-up BMW Matt’s dad used to work on and the fluffy black cat named Chips who was perched upon it, meowing at me for pets, which I obliged, at which point Matt walked into garage, looking quite groggy as if he had just woken up, and asked me something like: What are you guys doing? Because Miles and I had just walked into his home without even alerting him—which we often did—and I told him something like: Miles and I are taking Final Fantasy personality tests. To which Matt, who was meek and eldritch in many ways but also older than us by several years so didn’t really care about which fictional video game character he may be vaguely similar to, mumbled something like: OK cool, do you want to go swimming later? To which I promptly agreed because I loved to swim back then—still do.

After almost thirty minutes of chit-chat with Matt while petting Chips and drinking contraband soda, the inner garage door opened, and out walked Miles into the open garage proper, a look of something like despair and defeat on his face. He held a single sheet of white paper down by his side. I asked: What took you so long? He paused and fidgeted and stuttered before speaking: I took the quiz a few times, but. He trailed off, then he raised before him the paper, on which was a wall of black text below a large image of an older man with faded blonde hair and goggles who was chewing on a cigarette while grinning a big toothy grin; it was Cid—the space-obsessed, spear-wielding mechanic, pilot of the glorious Highwind airship—a character that, at the time, we both thought was kind of a joke character. So I leaned in closer to Miles, my eyes zoning in on the paper with the old dragoon upon it, and that’s when I erupted with uncontrollable laughter. Miles yelled: It’s not funny! And I retorted: Is too! and he retorted: Is not! and I retorted: Is too! and so on and so forth until he threw the paper in my face and darted out of the garage faster than I had ever seen him dart before. Matt was still standing there, like weird furniture, blinking hard before asking something like: Is he OK? To which I probably shrugged and said whatever before letting out a forced villainous chortle of some sort then picking up the thrown quiz results and grinning at them one final time before crumpling them into my pocket so as to wield them against Miles later for more big laughs.

Taking one final sip of my contraband soda before patting Chips on her fluffy head and pushing my way through the inner garage door back into the house proper, which was shadow-filled and smelled like an ashtray with air freshener sprayed directly on it, which only made it smell more like an ashtray somehow, I grabbed another soda from the fridge and made my way to Matt’s father’s computer room, which was dark and smelled of sour milk for some reason, and that's where I sat my slightly overweight self down, spun around a few times in the twirly chair, then pulled up to the desk, placing my thumb comfortably on the roller ball of Matt’s father’s mouse. “Which Final Fantasy VII Character Are You?!?!” already pulled up on the screen, the old results still showing, YOU ARE CID HIGHWIND, that old dragoon staring out at me from behind the glass with that big toothy cigarette-dangling grin, as if he had measured the worth of my soul and found it so laughably pathetic that all he could do was crack a smile, as if Cid knew that I would get what's coming to me in time, and this spooked me somewhat, so I quickly clicked the RETAKE THIS QUIZ button and, after a refresh that took a whole minute, there I was, staring at question one—DO YOU FEEL AS IF YOU DON’T BELONG?—determined to prove that I was the strongest, coolest, most beautiful character in the whole neighborhood, that I was, indeed, the Sephiroth of Suburbia.

So I cracked my knuckles and got to it.

2, Which Final Fantasy VII Character Are You?!?!

“The Ultimate Final Fantasy VII Personality Quiz, with Images! Created by ClimHazzardJones, published July 2000. Now with increased accuracy and even more characters!”

Q1: DO YOU FEEL AS IF YOU DON’T BELONG?

Before we go any further, I want to stress the following point: I am not looking for sympathy here. Nothing written in this essay is a cry for help; I am not fishing for some sort of “You’re being too harsh on yourself! Everyone has these feelings! Don’t beat yourself up” type of vacuous, nothing-statements one might feel inclined to make upon reading a self-critical analysis such as this one.

Now, let’s move on.

For as long as I can remember, I have never fit in; neither cliques nor squads would have me. I had a few close friends over the years, like Miles and Matt during the summers in Arcadia, but I have never been popular, even though I desired to be. And looking back, this has always been my own fault. I was always considered the quiet weirdo, according to my peers. I was, and still am, aloof and standoffish and coy, and quite tall, which all begets a certain level of unapproachability; and when I was younger, I had this obvious perpetual chip on my shoulder, as if I had something to prove, and this all combined into an aura of know-it-all-ness that was probably unbearable to anyone who associated with me. I was the “well actually” kid before that was even a thing—perhaps I made it a thing. The point is, I was not well-liked growing up, in school, camp, or otherwise.

From the ages of six to sixteen, I remember having approximately zero long-lasting friendships—outside of Miles and Matt, whom I only saw during the summers, so they had the benefit of not being around me for nine months of the year, which helps—and the one elementary school friend I did make—bonding over Pokemon cards—eventually stopped associating with me because I kept lying about having special knowledge of new Pokemon that were going to be released in the next-generation Pokemon games and I would make up all sorts of obviously fake names, like Bluey and Floofly and Sheepie, and a bunch of others that always ended with the “ee” vowel sound for some reason. Eventually, that ex-friend challenged me on the secret Pokemon thing, and, in my nervousness, I admitted that I had made some of them up but “not all of them,” and I remember this kid looking me straight in the face and saying: You’re an idiot. And I responded by squinting my eyes and glaring at this kid for at least half a minute, which ended up spooking him, I think, and he walked away, looking back every few steps only to find me still glaring at him as if I had the fiery mako eyes. From that point onward, he never spoke to me again. I believe his name was Chris. I felt so burned by this Chris that, one day during a recess break, I stayed behind in the classroom after everyone had left, dug through his desk, and stole a bunch of his Pokemon cards, pocketing a holographic Blastoise and Vileplume before ripping up the rest and making sure the ripped pieces were visible right on top of the trash in the open wastebasket by the door by my desk. I did this so that I could see this kid burst into tears when he realized that someone had ripped up all his cards. Unfortunately for me, however, later that day, after recess, after I had made sure to get into the classroom before everyone else so that I could watch my genius plan unfold, Chris, upon noticing his Pokemon cards were missing and finding many of them ripped up in the trash can, did not cry but screamed and immediately pointed at me and said: HE DID IT. At which point the teacher, Ms. Brooks—who was obsessed with bears and had laminated bears stuck up all over the walls and sometimes dressed up as a bear—took me into the principal’s office and made me empty out my pockets, the Blastoise and Vileplume revealed, at which point the jig was most definitely up, and my parents were called, and I got grounded for a week and, from that moment forth, I was known as the Pokemon thief that should be avoided at all costs because who knows what I was actually capable of. But at the time, I didn't feel like a thief, I just felt burned by Chris, which made me feel bad, which made me want to enact revenge; I wanted that kid to feel bad for making me feel bad, so that’s exactly what I did: made him feel bad.

Later, in middle school, I adjusted somewhat but was still aloof and standoffish and coy and tall, so I never made many friends, and the friends I did make were, for lack of better words, juvenile delinquents; one urinated on a kid’s backpack, another set fire to a trash can while screaming I AM AN ANTICHRIST I AM AN ANARCHIST, which were the lyrics to the Sex Pistols’ “Anarchy in the U.K.,” which we all thought was the peak of rebellious music at the time despite the fact that the Sex Pistols were signed to a major corporate label at one point, and this next bit is probably a given, but we all wore those black baggy tripp pants with the totally unnecessary belts hanging from them that cost a small fortune from Hot Topic, which my mom purchased for me without a second thought because she had remarried a very wealthy older man, and we all lived in a mansion; and, as a wealthy white boy of relative handsomeness, I had no real troubles in the world but wanted so badly to have troubles that I manufactured them myself; often I presented myself as poor because I thought it was some sort of cool fashion statement—because being wealthy was certainly not cool—and to this end, I was really just a massive poser. Toward the end of middle school, I started to realize how much of a poser I actually was, becoming even more self-conscious about the fact that I was wealthy but had already lied about it so much that I felt I couldn’t tell the truth without suffering some extreme embarrassment, so I doubled down, like some sort of poser-sunk-cost fallacy. So, even within the troubled-punk clique, I still didn’t belong because I was wealthy and not troubled at all. Eventually, I fell out with the punk kids and had no friends at all, which was around the time I started getting into '80s alternative rock and new wave—The Smiths, The Cure, and New Order, particularly—and started thinking that depression was cool and, as such, would lie to girls about how my dad was abusive when he was actually just a normal everyday dude who loved his son, and I did this because I thought it gave me a tragic backstory, thus making me more interesting. I might have told a few girls that I cut myself, which was something that I never actually did, but I did wear long-sleeve shirts so as to pretend that my arms were riddled with all sorts of heinous cuts. I also told people that I could play the guitar, but actually could do no such thing, so when people would ask me to play something for them, I would go to extreme lengths to either nope-the-fuck-out-of-there or make up some insanely elaborate excuse as to why I couldn’t play at the time; carpometacarpal neuropathic syndrome was mentioned a few times.

In short, growing up, I was an aloof, standoffish teen who had never experienced any real hardship in his life; I was insanely privileged, with basic teen interests like video games and alternative music and cartoons and comic books—but I wanted people to think I was more than that. I wanted to be perceived as cool and interesting, so I lied constantly to make myself seem more cool and interesting than I actually was. And I had a very skewed idea of what “being cool” actually meant—linking it to tragedy and depression and apathy. I was basically that girl from The Breakfast Club, you know the one that pretended to fuck her therapist. My entire background was either a lie or an extreme exaggeration. I wanted to be cool without putting any real effort into being cool, thinking I could simply shortcut my way to cooldom. And, in some ways, I’m still doing this today, even with this very essay you’re reading right now.

When high school came around, I had stopped lying as much, but I had also retreated into myself almost completely, out of fear of embarrassment mostly, holing up in my room playing Counter-Strike and Final Fantasy and Diablo while simultaneously listening to depressive '80s music while abusing amphetamines because the family psychiatrist believed that I had ADHD—and that was fine with me as long as I got more of those amazing pills, because those pills put me in another world, and I loved that other world because it was much better than the the world I inhabited, or so I had convinced myself, being a wealthy white boy that had experienced literally no real hardship in life. And it was around this time that I started to pretend to read Nietzsche and act like I was a high-brow intellectual, purposely carrying smart-sounding books under my arm in the school halls, and this, alongside my tallness and odd manner of dress—tight jeans and very baggy sweaters and The Cure hair (obviously)—was how I caught the attention of another kid named Robert, who shared many of my same interests, except he had actually read Nietzsche and actually knew how to play the guitar, so basically he was an honest version of me, minus the assholedom. And Robert and I became close friends; we even started a band together—The Crayons, which eventually renamed to Golly Gee—in which I insisted on being the frontman despite having no musical talent whatsoever and making him, Robert, compose all the music, which, for some reason, he obliged, which eventually led to me becoming envious of Robert’s musical talent to the point where I became resentful and angry all the time, which would end up becoming the main theme of our friendship, which is still ongoing, on-and-off today, with envy and resentment still there, in big terrible scoops, which really has nothing to do with him and everything to do with me.

Fast forward to now: I’m working for a software company in some sales-adjacent role that I loathe; everyone around me is obsessed with Ted Lasso and drinking and partying and making quota, whereas I’m over here reading David Foster Wallace short stories and being teetotal and never leaving the house and writing essays about how I hate sales culture (see: “Dionysus: Death”); so, once again, even present day, I do not belong, whatever that means. But I recognize that since I am so aware of these facts about myself—my almost willful contrarianism and this urge to be seen as interesting and/or unique—my resistance to fitting in is pretty much all ego at this point. Meaning, I could go hang out with the sales guys, fit in with the crowd, make a few friends here and there, but, when I get right down to it, I think myself better than these people—as if their life philosophy is just so stupid and corrupt that I could just never fit in with them to begin with; so basically, I am reducing people to ideologies—which they probably don’t even put much thought into to begin with—and then denouncing those ideologies, which in turn denounces huge swathes of people, probably unfairly. And upon reflection, this seems like the peak of human hubris, as if I believe that I have everything figured out while these sales dudes are just mindless goons that don’t think further than their next commission check. And the ultimate irony here is that, because of my terrible attitude toward my job and my general anti-corporate philosophy, I am doing worse financially than my peers, which could end up hurting me and my family in the long run, because finances are everything in modern life; so it’s not like my superiority complex is even producing good outcomes for me—it’s basically just pretension, almost as if I am erecting some sort of faulty intellectual barrier in an attempt to shield myself from accusations of being an unmotivated, lazy person who just doesn’t want to do any real work, which is absolutely what I am and have been doing for my whole life, considering that I dropped out of both high school and college, and my career path thus far has pretty much been just keeping a low profile and coasting while not giving one single fuck about the company I work for—a company that, supposedly, does not align with my values as a person, yet I still work for them, pretending actions don’t speak louder than words. All this is to say that, in a roundabout way, I am still just like I was in grade school: a poser, a fraud.

In fact, I have always sorta felt like a psychopath trying to blend in with nice, caring people. I had a rocky start from a young age, revealing my psychopathy a bit too much, but the more mistakes I made, the more I learned how to better pretend at being a normal, caring person. But perhaps this is just an excuse; my ego trying to justify my desire to be perceived as interesting and cool and different: I’M NOT LIKE THE OTHER GUYS: I’M A HIGH-FUNCTIONING PSYCHOPATH. Like some sort of Melancholic Phantom Nightmare Boy.

I tell myself that everyone is like this, they just don’t admit to it. I tell myself that everyone is a liar, a faker, a poser. But maybe I only tell myself this to make myself feel better about being a massive faker who is pretty much empty inside. I don’t know.

What I do know is, I want to belong to some sort of group, just not the groups I find myself surrounded by. I know that I want to belong, or be associated with, or be known as, a genius writer. I want people to read my stuff, coming away thinking something like: Holy shit this is the most brilliant thing I have ever read how can this guy be so deep and honest and open about his own inner darkness like this wow just wow. And maybe that’s the real reason I write all this stuff to begin with—because I want to belong, I want to be praised, loved. But does this not undermine the act of writing itself? Should I not just write because I enjoy writing? That’s not to say that I don’t enjoy writing, just that, sometimes, the drive to produce perfect works and be praised for producing those perfect works is stronger than the love of writing itself, and with this comes cognitive dissonance rooted in feelings of fraudulence, which means that, even when doing something that I supposedly love—like writing—I still do not truly feel like I belong here, doing the thing that I supposedly love doing.

So, to answer the question: I have never belonged. Ever. And it’s no one’s fault but my own.

Q2: ARE YOU COMPETITIVE?

Outwardly, no. Inwardly, I’m one of the most competitive people I know.

But competition makes me feel bad in many ways, which is why, outwardly, I manufacture an air of chill go-with-the-flow unassumingness that only serves to cover up the fact that I am incredibly competitive but, at the same time, acutely aware of my inability to compete—due to incompetence and laziness—thus, my outward anti-competitiveness serves as a soul bulwark to deflect the dissonance and feelings of despair that arise from my own shortcomings. And, in this way, I am an ouroboros, making excuses for my own lazy incompetence, thus becoming more lazy and incompetent, thus relying on more excuses to deflect from my increased lazy incompetence, thus becoming more lazy and incompetent, and so on and so forth.

For example, as an amateur writer, I like to say that “good writing” and “bad writing” do not exist. I like to say that writing—and other works of art—cannot be objectively judged, because to judge something there must be a standard and, since everyone's standards are different, objectivity in the judgment process therefore cannot exist, thus nothing can be concretely “good” or “bad.” But this outwardly stated belief conveniently shields me from accusations that my writing may not be very good. Thus, this “quality is subjective” concept that I have cultivated, while based on some modicum of truth, only serves to deflect criticism from myself, so that I don’t have to deal with the unpleasantness of negative feedback. It allows me to say stuff like: WELL, THEY JUST DON’T GET IT and then brush my hands off and walk away, never having to face the fact that maybe possibly something I wrote is actually not that good, which also means that I never have to compete with others, because everything is supposedly subjective so what the hell is there to compete about in the first place.

But there’s a contradiction here: I am constantly comparing myself to other writers, competing with them in my mind, so, obviously, I have an idea of what I believe to be “good” and “bad” writing, and I try to emulate what I perceive as “good” writing. Thus, I undermine my own outwardly stated “quality is subjective” value system, all the while constantly competing with other writers in my head. And yet another contradiction here is that, inwardly, I am incredibly judgmental of other writers, sometimes reading their stuff in private while vocally mumbling about how much their work sucks, even though no one is around to hear me, as if I’m possessed by some sort of fifth-circle demon—or perhaps am one. And, to top off the contradiction cake here, outwardly, I often provide positive feedback to the very same writers I think so vitriolically of—on good days, however, I just ignore their work completely. So, in conclusion, I am not some chill go-with-the-flow hippie writer; I am actually an incredibly harsh critic who shits on everyone else’s writing—I just pretend that I’m not, because it deflects criticism away from me. And this ties in with the whole idea that I am a fucking fraud poser.

But it goes much deeper than that. Because, while I do read a lot—mostly literary fiction, sci-fi, and essays—I try to avoid reading the work of other writers whom I know personally, because:

Q3: DO YOU ENVY OTHERS?

I get uncontrollably envious of them—almost insanely so—as I see their writing as a challenge to my own identity as a writer, and I just can’t deal with these feelings in a healthy way; so much so that I become overcome with jealousy, which warps into resentment, which warps into a storm of quiet rage, pulsing a psychic negative aura so strong that it can even be felt across vast distances, and this ends up destroying all my relationships with other writers.

Writers within my orbit threaten me on some deep visceral level, even though I know that if I feel threatened by a person, it’s almost always because I’m scared that that person is better than me in some way; then I become envious of their better-than-me qualities, and my behavior toward that person changes in very negative, obvious ways: communication becomes shorter, more frank, I make snippy remarks poorly hidden behind thin layers of humor for plausible deniability—IT WAS A JOKE—or I just suddenly avoid the person outright. And, even though I know all this about myself and can analyze it, I still continue to feel threatened—almost uncontrollably so. And it’s very easy for me to feel threatened; even a 500-word short story with poor syntax and terrible spelling can make me feel envious as a writer, as if my id is asserting that only I can be a writer, no one else—as if my whole being depends on it, as if writing is all that I have and other writers are just trying to take that away from me, make me look stupid, hurt me in some way. So, usually, I choose instead to just ignore the writing of people I know personally, because I know myself and I know that I’ll start thinking stuff like: DO THEY THINK THAT THEY’RE A BETTER WRITER THAN ME? ARE THEY TRYING TO COPY MY STYLE? WHY ARE THEY TRYING TO COMPETE WITH ME? MAYBE THEY ARE BETTER THAN ME. MAYBE I AM A BAD WRITER. MAYBE I SHOULD JUST STOP WRITING ALTOGETHER. WHY DO THEY MAKE ME FEEL THIS WAY? ARE THEY DOING THIS ON PURPOSE? ARE THEY TRYING TO HURT ME? FUCK THEM. And in this way, I project my own competitive insecurities onto everyone else, as if I am the supermassive black hole at the center of the amateur-writing universe, as if other writers are constantly thinking about me and trying to be just like me because they themselves are actually envious of me, not the other way around—even though I know, deep down, this is not true and, in fact, totally ridiculous, yet I still have all these terrible envious thoughts, as if I imprisoned a muse and this is my punishment. I knew this about myself for a long time but never really thought about it too hard until a few years ago—back in 2023, when I ran a writing blog, oncomputer.games, with my only real long-lasting friend, Robert, the same friend who I was in a band with in high school.

Robert and I both wrote several essays for oncomputer.games, which was focused on merging philosophy, nostalgia, and socio-political issues with video games. It started as a fun cooperative project, a way for us to combine passions into something that, at the time, we felt was important and meaningful. And, of course, there was also the element of wanting to be perceived as cool and smart, like some sort of writing celebrity or something—at least these motivations were there for me; I can’t speak on Robert’s behalf, although I often pretended that I could, which basically destroyed our relationship, because back then, I had convinced myself that I knew what he was thinking—I had convinced myself that he was trying to make me look like a bad writer by constantly trying to compete with me.

Let me explain.

After I wrote the first essay for that publication, I felt like a god of writing, as if I had just published Shakespeare or something, even though it was actually a very dull review of Final Fantasy XII in which the only interesting part was the comparison between the game and Star Wars, and also how *Final Fantasy XII *turned the Final Fantasy franchise into “Vaan throws a tornado at the monster.” But, regardless of all that, I still felt accomplished after publishing it; until Robert posted his first essay tying Xenosaga to a number of lofty philosophical concepts that, frankly, went over my head—and still go over my head to this day. From that moment forward, I became envious of Robert’s ability as a writer, just as I had become envious of his ability as a musician years prior. This envy was easy to ignore at first—I just kept writing and publishing and pushing it down as best I could—until Robert would release another essay, which was always much better than his previous essay, which would throw me into yet another spiral of envy. And after this happened a few times, I became resentful of Robert. I started to feel like I knew what he was thinking; I started to feel like he was purposely trying to write better essays than me, like it was a competition, like he wanted me to know that he was the better writer, as if he wanted me to feel bad, which is where the resentment sprang from, and then I started to feel like I hated him; I could barely speak to him without wanting to burn his life down like Sephiroth at Nibelheim. Sometimes, when we spoke, he would tell me about how he was having trouble coming up with things to write about due to various personal issues, and I would always think to myself: YES, I HOPE YOU SUFFER SO THAT YOU NEVER PUBLISH ANOTHER ESSAY EVER AGAIN SO THAT I NEVER HAVE TO FEEL THIS WAY. I wanted him to stop publishing essays so badly, but I couldn’t tell him this outright because I was too proud to admit my weakness, thinking it made me look pathetic in some way. I grew cold and distant, started making little passive-aggressive comments about his writing style, would get drunk and rage at him in online chat, call him a pretentious copycat loser, and then I started ignoring him—all the while, he kept publishing essays, but I wouldn’t read them, both for his sake and my own, because I knew what would happen if I read them: I would go insane again. But ignoring his work didn’t help, because it was still there, still happening. In this way, oncomputer.games became a nexus of torment, and after about a year inside this nexus, Robert and I got into a big fight. I was drinking back then, and we were both drunk, and we discussed, via text, the weird funk that both of us felt. I remember telling him that I knew he thought my writing was bad and that he was trying to outdo my work, but he denied it, highlighting ways that my writing actually inspired him, but I didn’t believe it. I couldn’t believe him. I could not accept his words because I believed I had him all figured out, I believed that I knew the contents of his soul, and therefore, I could not be incorrect about him. And after accusing him of being a liar—like a twelve-year-old throwing a tantrum—I told him something like: YOU HAVE SURPASSED THE MASTER I RELEASE YOU GO AWAY. And that’s exactly what he did: he deleted his essays from oncomputer.games, vanished from our online spaces, and didn’t speak to me for over a year—and he was totally right to do that.

All this is to illustrate that envy is basically one of my core character traits.

I’m envious of people who are prettier than me people who know how to play instruments and sing people who know how to write and draw real well If I were a hermit crab, I’d be envious of their shell

I’m envious of people who know things I don't know even those who know less because I envy their bliss but when I feel heaven I envy the abyss

I’m envious of the people I fall in love with of how they make me swoon if I were the sun I’d be envious of the moon

I'm envious of the people I hate because I end up hating all the people I envy and I hate myself from years ago so youthful, dumb, and trendy

I’m a dark cloud envious of the sky so blue and if you're reading this there's a good chance I'm envious of you too

So, do I envy others? You’re damn right I do.

Q4: ARE YOU MANIPULATIVE?

Yes. I’m even trying to manipulate you—the reader—right now with this essay.

I’m trying to cultivate a certain image that fits the narrative of this piece: an image of an introspective person who is able to take full stock of himself, owning up to all his darkness. And I’m doing that by presenting myself in the worst possible light and then criticizing the resulting caricature. I’m also mixing fact and fiction through exaggeration and hyperbole in a way that you—the reader—are totally unable to discern, because how could you really know the true details of my life? In fact, some of the stuff in this essay is just flat-out made up, all to cultivate this version of myself that I am trying to sell to you right now. I'm even manipulating you with this seemingly honest paragraph by trying to make you believe that I am an unreliable narrator. But these are not the only ways that I’m manipulative.

At the end of Disc 1 of Final Fantasy VII, Cloud travels to confront Sephiroth in the North Crater; on his way there, Sephiroth presents Cloud with trippy images of Cloud’s past, attempting to show Cloud that he is not who he believes himself to be. Sephiroth, knowing the truth of Cloud’s identity—which is actually the identity of another person entirely, but due to both grief and mako poisoning, Cloud has subconsciously adopted this person’s identity—believes that by showing Cloud his true identity, he can control Cloud, manipulate him. Just like I am trying to manipulate you—the reader—right now. But not only that, Sephiroth, in this instance, sees himself as a truthsayer, dropping little truth meteors on Cloud; much like how I see myself when typing up ten-thousand word essays about how you should stop using the internet or how you should stop watching the news or how you shouldn't have children or that one time I pretended to know what “love” actually is

You see, I’ve written dozens of essays now, many of which proclaim to know the root cause of certain problems in the world, and each essay presents some sort of solution, as if I'm qualified to provide a solution at all. Many of the essays directly address the reader and society at large, strongly asserting conclusions that basically amount to: YOU SHOULD STOP DOING THIS AND INSTEAD TRY TO BETTER YOURSELF or something like that, trying to manipulate the reader into changing their attitude and behavior, as if I know what’s best for the world and the people in it, as if I’m some sort of truthsayer, as if I'm Sephiroth manipulating Cloud. When the truth is that I’m just a privileged white dude that has never faced any real hardship in his life. I don’t know shit. I’m just typing up long-form essays in my office here because I think it makes me seem cool, trying to manipulate people into thinking I’m a genius writer, while people all around are starving and dying en masse.

The only truth meteor here is that I’m a manipulative person, everything else is just words.

Q5: DO YOU WANT A RABID FAN CLUB?

My father used to ask me: SON, WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP? As if he were never a child himself to know how ridiculous that question actually is. And for the longest time, I didn’t have an answer—who does?—so I would play dumb, shrug it off, which was something my father hated; he wanted his little boy to be decisive and strong and athletic and basically all the things I wasn’t. But around the age of fifteen, I figured it out—I finally knew what I wanted to be: I saw it on the television, one late late night, on MTV2; the makeup on his face, his animal grace, his darkness and disgrace; that razor-sharp jawline of his and that little smirk that glew with occult radiance; the way he shifted from Stardust to Duke to Goblin King, like some sort of human chameleon; his extraterrestrial baritone howling out WE COULD BE HEROES in the deep dark, a single spotlight shining on his back, rays of light shooting out from all around him, as if he were the star itself, his celestial body swaying romantic as he stared out with those supernova eyes of his; the way the audience swooned over him, loved him, worshiped him. That’s what I wanted. That’s who I wanted to be. David Bowie. I wanted to be David Bowie.

I also wanted to be Siouxsie Sioux, Sting, Sephiroth, Morrissey, Prince, one of those robots from Daft Punk, Beck, Jack White, Kevin Shields from the band My Bloody Valentine, Trent Reznor circa Pretty Hate Machine, 2-D from Gorillaz. The list goes on. Basically: idolatry. I wanted to be just like my idols. I would take pictures of Robert Smith to the barber and they would look at me like I was fucking crazy. I wanted to be a pop star, a big-time weird celebrity. I wanted to be adored—still do, really.

Of course, my father could never know about any of this; he’d only laugh at me, tell me I’m being fanciful, unrealistic, maybe even a little stupid; he’d tell me how it would never happen, how I should focus on school and other actually-obtainable goals, and he would have been right. Because try as I might, in high school, I could just never make it work; I fronted a band, we played one gig at a coffee shop that only did acoustic shows, and me, not knowing how to play an instrument, just kinda stood there on that stage swaying Bowie-like a little bit, singing very poorly, wearing these big goofy glasses that, at the time, I thought were cool for some reason. We played a song titled “Silly Silly Sorceress,” which was inspired by Final Fantasy VIII, and we covered Talking Heads’ “Psycho Killer,” and some girls came up to us afterward, told us how they liked “Psycho Killer,” but they didn’t say if they liked our cover, likely because I couldn’t pronounce the French parts properly, which was probably quite amusing to those in the audience that night. And over the loud sound-testing of the next act, one guy even said to me in a very dry tone: WELL AT LEAST YOU PUT YOURSELF OUT THERE, which, in my mind, solidified the quality of our performance. I remember one older woman said the guitarist, Robert—my best friend—was really talented and asked for his number, and this really pissed me off because it rubbed in the fact that obviously he was the talented one and I was not. Maybe if I had put in some effort in, practiced the songs more than once or twice, put in the time to learn how to play an instrument, I might have impressed those people, that might have even put me on a path to Bowiedom, who knows—but I’m not actually that attractive either, certainly not Bowie-level attractive, so I’d have to put in double the effort to get as big as Bowie, and the idea of that was just very very daunting to me, and thus I became discouraged, and then I became more envious of Robert’s seemingly natural musical ability; so, in an effort to make the pain go away, I walked away from the whole dream of becoming Bowie 2.0 and focused, instead, on taking Adderall and playing video games and, occasionally, writing for a music blog and bemoaning my life on LiveJournal.com and doing all sorts of other stupid teenage shit like pregnancy close-calls and overdosing on cough syrup and skipping school every other day.

I realize this is an incredibly long-winded way of saying that I do, indeed, want a rabid fan club. Even now, I’m trying to cultivate a rabid fan club, except I’ve moved on from trying to be a pop star to trying to be some cult online indie writer or whatever. And if you don’t believe me, then take this essay you’re reading right now as an example; take it as a microcosm of my entire writing portfolio thus far: on the one small hand, this essay exists because I enjoy writing; on the other very big hand, I want people to come away from this thinking that I, the author, am a massive super genius who is also incredibly insightful due to my uncanny ability to be so hyperaware of my own inner darkness and borderline-psychopathic machinations—as if simply being aware of this stuff fixes it somehow. So, really, what I’m trying to do here is actually cultivate a cult of personality, with myself as the pop star messiah. In other words, I’m trying to become the David Bowie of the literary blogosphere.

But that’s not necessarily true; it’s more complicated than that: I’m too vain to grovel for readers by advertising my work, thinking it’s beneath me, thinking my work should stand on its own and should therefore cultivate a cult of personality all by itself—so much so that I undermine my reach as a writer and therefore still toil in obscurity. But that self-psychoanalysis isn’t necessarily true either, because I don’t really refuse to advertise due to thinking I’m too good for it—that’s just an excuse—I refuse to advertise because I’m terrified of negative feedback, and advertising my work opens me up to a lot of negative feedback indeed. So ultimately, the first reason I cited was actually more of a lie and, in actuality, I don’t advertise because I just cannot take negative feedback very well at all, because it makes me angry and spirals me into a deep pit of egocentric despair; a pit so deep that I have to dig myself out by telling myself over and over that my critics are actually not very smart people and that they don’t know how to write like I do and therefore their criticism is invalid and they should just fuck off. So I want a rabid sycophantic fan club but I’m too afraid to really go for it for fear of someone saying something that might hurt my fragile ego.

And the few times that I have cultivated a small fan club, I ended up self-sabotaging myself into obscurity, nearly subconsciously, out of fear of exposure—for example, some of my video game writing became popular back in 2024, then I declared that writing about video games was a meaningless stupid waste of time, and thus stopped publishing on the site that was finally getting some traction, thereby ostracizing whatever video game-adjacent fan club I had worked for a year to cultivate. And there was that other time when I became semi-popular on social media then declared that social media was toxic and anyone on it was toxic as well, so, in an effort to stop being so toxic, I deleted all my social media accounts, leaving no easy way for people to contact me, thus destroying whatever semblance of a fan club I had in that space as well.

So, yes, I want a rabid fan club, but also I don’t, because I’m afraid of negative feedback; yet, when I do get negative feedback, I just tell myself that my critics are stupid and that I’m better than them in every way, and this makes me feel a little better.

Q6: DO YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN OTHER PEOPLE?

At this point, it would be stupid to deny it, as I’ve written it quite plainly above, multiple times, for all to read: I think myself better than other people—at least, that’s what I tell myself. And I’m happy to deep dive into this, but before I do, I want to talk about Sephiroth again for a moment.

When Sephiroth learned that he was a test-tube baby with alien DNA and that humans were destroying the planet to power pizza cities, he burned down Nibelheim, murdered Cloud’s girlfriend, and summoned a meteor to destroy the very planet he claimed to care about. He saw himself as the scourge of humanity, someone to wipe the slate clean: an accelerationist, a speedrunner, a one-man extinction event. But by doing this, he became the very thing he hated: a planet-killing murderer, just like the humans he thought himself so much better than. But Sephiroth had a defense for this accusation; his rage manifested a superiority complex, a barrier shielding him from accusations that he himself might also be a monster. And if he were a monster, he would have to kill himself, too; and he can’t have that, because he’s an egomaniacal psychopath. So instead, Sephiroth tells himself that he’s different from the rest, better than other people, special—and this spares him from having to deal with the cold hard truth: that maybe he’s just like the people he claims to hate. And one can’t help but think that Sephiroth knew this about himself—knew that, effectively, he was a massive hypocrite; perhaps he didn’t care, or perhaps he did, and, in destroying the planet, perhaps he planned on destroying himself too; perhaps the only person he hated was actually himself all along. One thing is certain, however: Sephiroth’s superiority complex—his belief that he was better than other people—did not come from a place of positivity, or even a place of change; it came from a place of negativity: rage, despair, maybe even a little envy. Almost as if Sephiroth had a little demon in his head, telling him lies to make himself feel better about being such a monster—when the only reason Sephiroth felt like such a monster to begin with was because he acted as if he were a monster, and by telling himself that he was ultimate lifeform—giving into the little demon in his head—he didn’t have to deal with the root cause of his despair: himself. But unfortunately, we’ll never really know his true motives, as Seprhioth was a man of few words—and those few words were those of an edgy teenager’s—if only he had written a long-winded essay explaining himself, perhaps then we would better understand his inner demons.

Pardon the cliché, but sometimes I feel like there’s a demon inside my head, an angel too, both zapping different parts of my frontal lobe. Maybe this is the left-brain, right-brain dichotomy, or the ego-id-superego thing—who knows. It’s hard to explain, but the demon and the angel feel like different layers of a soul barrier, both guarding my true soul in some sense; the demon is the surface-level barrier, the first line of defense against anything unpleasant, while the angel is the second barrier deeper down, closer to my soul and, as such, possesses some wisdom about my true self. The angel and the demon both tell me things, sometimes simultaneously, which causes no end of heinous cognitive dissonance. The demon tells me that whenever I face criticism or feel threatened or envious or whatever, whoever is kicking me in the psychic groin is a fucking idiot whom I'm better than, essentially twisting the perpetrator of my pain into some sort of monster that I can then metaphorically slay with my Ultima Weapon, thus maybe saving myself some emotional health points. The angel, however, tells me that under every superiority complex is a harrowing fear of inadequacy; she tells me that my envy is self-inflicted, because I believe myself to be inadequate by my own standard—essentially, I am unhappy with myself—and that, because of this, anyone who meets my personal standard of adequacy causes me to feel threatened because they have reached a level of adequacy that I have not yet reached myself, and that, when faced with this revelation, I erect barriers to block out the feelings of inadequacy that follow, barriers such as the demon wall of envy, rage, and narcissism. The angel tells me that, if I want to stop this envy-rage-narcissism cycle, I must focus on improving myself through hard work and practice and dedication and all that classic self-improvement stuff, and that even the simple act of attempting this self-improvement routine will help me break the cycle of envy; and sometimes, when I listen to her real hard, it makes sense and I believe her and I know she’s right, and thus I know what I must do. But then I turn my attention back to the demon, who gives me a little smirk and a wink, tells me that it’s easier to just give in, and that makes me feel good, so I turn back to the angel and say: DO YOU THINK YOU’RE BETTER THAN ME? WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO HURT ME? ARE YOU DOING THIS ON PURPOSE? FUCK YOU.

And then the little angel goes poof.

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Part 2

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#FinalFantasy7 #Essay #Autobiographical #ShortStory #ComputerGames

Part 1 | Part 2

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3, Re: The Sephiroth of Suburbia

“Ha, ha, ha... my sadness? What do I have to be sad about? I am the chosen one.”

It was around this time that I heard some sort of commotion coming from outside the office. Matt’s dad, a goblin of a man, who must have come home early, was shouting at his son. My stomach dropped and I was suddenly aware of the blood inside me, burning, for I was obviously trespassing in Matt’s dad’s office, having been told several times by both Matt and his dad never to go into the office—or the house without the parents present, for that matter. My face was all flushed red, full of hell and hemoglobin, which I tried to gulp down. I had only a few more questions to go, so in one smooth motion, I twirled and rolled the chair to the office door, locked the deadbolt, then twirled and rolled once more back to the computer, where I took the mouse in hand like there was no tomorrow and started just clicking away as fast as I could, answering the remainder of the “Which Final Fantasy VII Character Are You?!?!” quiz questions as if I had cast Haste on myself and then jumped into the body of Sephiroth, like it was no longer me answering the questions but Sephiroth himself, in the flesh, clicking mighty fast clicks.

Q7: DO YOU EVER REGRET THINGS YOU’VE DONE? No, regret is for the weak. I only look forward.

Q8: IF YOU WERE WRONG, WOULD YOU ADMIT IT? Of course I would, but I’m never wrong, so there’s never anything to admit.

Q9: DO YOU PUT OTHERS ABOVE YOURSELF? Pfft. No. Well, maybe my Grandma Susu—but no one else.

I flicked the roller ball to the next question, and that’s when I realized that the faint yelling had stopped, only to be replaced by a stomping of feet, then I sensed a presence right outside the office door. The doorknob started to jiggle. Matt’s dad’s voice dropped like an atom bomb. FORREST I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE echoed in the room even with the door closed. My heart started to race, hands shook. I closed my eyes but didn’t say a word, only thought to myself: I am Sephiroth, and Sephiroth is never afraid. Then I took a deep breath and opened my eyes once more. Only three questions left.

Q10: DO YOU EVER IGNORE THE TRUTH? Of course not. I am an introspective person who is able to take full stock of himself. I own up to all my darkness, however unpleasant.

Q11: HAVE YOU EVER CRIED? No. Sephiroth never cries.

Q12: DO YOU EVER RUN FROM YOUR PROBLEMS? No way. I am Sephiroth, and Sephiroth is never afraid, and therefore he never runs away.

And that’s when I realized that I needed to run away, because there was a mighty slam on the door followed by another atomic bomb: FORREST GET YOUR GODDAMN ASS OUT HERE RIGHT NOW. But first I needed to get my quiz results. More pounding. The room shook; a fallout of drywall drifted through the monitor glow. LAST WARNING BOY. I jumped in my seat and my hands shook so wildly that I knocked over my soda, spilling it all over the keyboard, which caused a crackle and a poof and then a faint smoky smell before there was another pounding on the door. At that moment, nothing was more important than finishing the quiz, proving that I was Sephiroth, once and for all, rubbing it in Miles’ face, so I rolled that roller ball to SHOW RESULTS? and clicked harder than I had ever clicked before; the webpage went white before loading in the new page real slow like an old Xerox, and while the page was loading, I stood up out of the twirly chair and looked around the room, taking stock of my escape options, of which there was only one: a window that opened to a pathway in front of the house, itself blocked by a great holly, prickly leaves and all, but I was wearing a long-sleeve shirt and had climbed through worse in my time, so I smirked a Sephiroth smirk and resolved myself to the holly, but not before turning back to the monitor, where I saw the results—those glorious results—fully loaded: a low-resolution picture of the man himself, a still from the game, disc 1, the Nibelheim incident; he was standing there in the blaze, reverse gripping the Masamune, back to the camera, hair blowing wild in the fiery wind, looking cool as hell, in the fires of hell, as if he was one with the flame itself.

YOU ARE SEPHIROTH: the coolest, most strongest, most unstoppable warrior ever. Pretty much a god. You’ve got a dank sword and amazing hair and a long black coat that makes you look totally badass. You’re smart and calm and not afraid of anything and you’re always one step ahead and you can mind control people like they’re puppets because you’re just that cool and powerful. You’ve got a dark side, which makes you even more cool and mysterious, especially to the ladies. But be careful, because even though you are the most strongest warrior alive, you still have a lot of enemies, and your worst enemy just might be yourself.

The pounding on the door had stopped, and for a moment, there was only the sound of hard drives clicking and little fans humming. I could practically hear the computations in real time as I inched myself closer to the monitor, awestruck by the glory of Sephiroth; eyes wide, drooling, sweaty palms, heavy breathing, the whole thing. My face was so close to the monitor that condensation was threatening to put out the very fire Sephiroth was standing in. It’s hard to gauge how much time had passed before I snapped back to reality, placing my hand on that big mouse, rolling right to the PRINT RESULTS button, and clicking multiple times in spastic frenzy. The printer went chhk-chhk, otherwise silence; I figured Matt’s dad had given up. Less than a minute passed, and I had my quiz results in hand, on a single sheet of warm paper. I placed my cheek up to the paper, felt the warmth, then kissed Sephiroth right on the head before turning to the window, pushing aside the curtains, fiddling with the latches, and lifting the pane; a light breeze touched my skin and the smells of summer—pollen, petrol, petrichor—wafted through my nostrils.

With Sephiroth in hand, I lifted one leg out the window, and then the other; and there I was, surrounded by the great hedge. I took a deep breath, then used my free hand to create an opening in the holly, prickly leaves drawing blood. Eyes closed, I lifted Sephiroth to cover my face and, using my free hand to displace branches, ducked my head and pushed right through the holly. It wasn’t long before I felt the warmth of the sun upon my skin, but there was also a chill, a literal shadow upon me. I lowered Sephiroth, eyes open, and that’s when I saw it. But it wasn’t an it; it was a he. It was Matt’s dad, staring down at me, his sunken head nearly lost in that bulbous pumpkin body of his, loose flaps of skin hanging all around his face, and those flaps had flaps and those flaps had warts and those warts had warts and those warts had little pube-like hairs poking out all over the place; his bushy brow was one single line that sunk in the middle like a reverse bell curve, and his eyes were less like eyes and more like small black holes that sucked even the very soul out of a person. He was so hideous up close that I remember wanting to gag, but I was unable to move at all, for my eyes were supermoons and my body had taken on heinous gravity. Fear. With Sephiroth in hand, I gulped, and I thought of the fear litany: I AM SEPHIROTH AND SEPHIROTH IS NEVER AFRAID. But before I could regain composure, I felt a sharp pain on the top of my head; Matt’s dad had reached deep into my wild hair and clenched. He started tugging. Before I knew what was really going on, I was being pulled out of the great holly by my hair. I was flailing my hands, waving Sephiroth all around. I screamed: LET GO OF ME! I’M SEPHIROTH! YOU’RE JUST A PUPPET! And then I started to yell spell names: SUPERNOVA! FIRE THREE! ULTIMA! LET GO OF ME! QUAKE! METEOR! As if Matt’s dad were some sort of enemy to defeat in turn-based combat. But I could not break free. He kept pulling, dragging me across the lawn; my arms were flailing and my legs were kicking and I was screaming bloody murder the whole time. Then he dumped me onto the hard cement of his driveway.

I was on my hands and knees, panting like a wild dog, hands all scrapped up and sticky, paper Sephiroth pushed against the cement underneath my bloody palm. It took a moment to realize that Matt’s dad had unhanded me, but when I did, I propped myself up and attempted to make a run for it, but there was nowhere I could run, for I was surrounded. Trapped, like a demon in a summoning circle, one person on each point of the pentacle that bound me: Matt’s dad, Matt, Lauren, Lauren’s mom, and Miles. Realizing I was stuck, I collapsed to my knees, consumed with a fear that was beyond fear, dread. I was trembling and Sephiorth was crumbling in my trembling hand.

Matt’s dad stepped into the circle. He said: I TOLD YOU NOT TO GO INTO MY OFFICE, BOY. Then a smirk lit up his toad-like face as he said: COPS ARE COMING. THIS IS THE LAST TIME YOU BREAK INTO MY HOUSE. And I, high on adrenaline and the faux confidence of a fictional video game character, looked at that old goblin and said coolly: Well, maybe you shouldn’t leave the door unlocked then. And this prompted the old goblin to lurch at me with near-murderous intent, but Matt stepped forward, blocking his father, and meekly said: I tried to stop him, Forrest, I really did, and I hope we can still go swimming later. To which I scoffed and said something like: Yeah right, never swimming with you again, narc. Then a cop car pulled into the driveway and just idled there ominously, to which I said: What are they going to do, arrest a kid? And I laughed a fake villainous laugh because, at this point, I believed they were just trying to scare me.

Then Lauren stepped into the circle, the flame in her eyes nearly as bright as her fiery hair, she said: Miles told me all about how you traded my Game Boy Camera. And then her mother, whom I had never seen before in my life, stepped forward and said: That’s trespassing and theft, Forrest. And then she paused and said: Have you ever been to juvie before? Which made my stomach feel like an elevator with its cord cut. And she must have been a businesswoman because she had this fake executive smile on her freckled face when she said: WELL? And I tried to do the villainous-laugh thing again, but all I could muster was a stutter: I, I, I, I, and so on. And then I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, trying to compose myself. I could hear songbirds singing and distant lawnmowers growling and the cop car softly purring as it just idled there like existential dread.

And when I opened my eyes, I saw Miles standing there, looking down on me, an aura of defiant victory radiating from him. I said: HOW COULD YOU? I THOUGHT WE WERE FRIENDS. YOU’LL REGRET THIS. But Miles just looked at me with this big toothy grin on his face, as if he had measured the worth of my soul and found it so laughably pathetic that all he could do was crack a smile; he was only missing the cigarette and the polearm and the Highwind. He said nothing but mouthed one word: Payback. And this drove me insane. I stood straight up, pushed the bloody quiz results into his face, and shouted: YOU ASKED ME TO PROVE IT. LOOK. I AM SEPHIROTH. SEE! PROOF ENOUGH FOR YOU? And then I lurched at him, as if to cause harm, but that’s when I saw her, standing right behind Miles, her hands covering her mouth, as if she couldn’t believe what she was seeing. It was my grandma, Susu. She was weeping.

She was weeping.

And when I saw her standing there, weeping, something struck me, something real and profound, something like embarrassment that morphed into guilt and then shame, real deep shame, as if my branch on the family tree had withered and was about to fall away, as if all my ancestors were looking down on me, disappointed, some shaking their heads, some weeping. I looked around and, struck by the realization that I was surrounded by the consequences of my own decisions, I dropped the quiz results, fell to my knees, and buried my head in my hands. A cool breeze drifted in, blowing Sephiroth away on the wind. My eyes welled, and I, too, began to weep.

With tears streaming down my face, I started to mumble: But I … I… Sephiroth…

That’s when Miles stepped into the circle. And I’ll never forget what he said to me. He said:

Yeah, but Sephiroth loses in the end.

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If this essay made you feel something, please let me know via email at f0rrest@pm.me.

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Return to Part 1

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#FinalFantasy7 #Essay #Autobiographical #ShortStory #ComputerGames

Prologue

“They say that the golden age is gone, never to return. But I believe that we can somehow bring it back. I must believe... if I am to carry on.” —Narrator, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

Between the verdant hills of Arcadia and the rainbow falls of Shella, the cleansing fires of Kilanda and the wheat fields of Fum, the tranquil streams of Tipa and the crystal blues of the Jegon, even between the burning sands of the Sahara and the majestic geysers of Yellowstone, there creeps a sick miasma, snuffing out the golden glow, slowly killing us all.

You can try to fight it, hold your heart high like a crystal chalice filled with myrrh, try to banish the miasma with memories of the golden age—but your chalice is running dry and the memories are fading fast and you’re all alone because everyone around you has already dropped dead and you’re starving for myrrh and the miasma is closing in faster than ever before.

How long do you think you can survive by yourself, lost in this monstrous fog?

Eventually, you’re going to need someone on your side, because you can’t banish the miasma alone.

So pack up your caravan and dust off that old magic racket, because we’re heading to the unnamed fantasy world of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles to collect some myrrh, banish the miasma, and maybe—just maybe—bring back the golden age.

I, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

“Miasma hindered my steps, and monsters struck at me from behind. Still, I’ll always look back fondly on the warm smiles that greeted me in villages I visited, and it was always a joy to meet other caravans on the long, lonely road.” —Player’s Diary, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

Long ago, there was a golden era: a great crystal shone its light on all things, banishing the darkness—until a great meteor fell from the sky, shattering the crystal and leaving behind a thick miasma that poisoned all it touched. But all hope was not lost, for massive shards of the mother crystal were scattered across the land, repelling the miasma. In time, villages formed around these crystals. But the crystals’ powers waned each year, refreshed only by an offering of myrrh, a rare dew found all across the land. And so, at the start of each year, each village sends a caravan out into the miasma to gather myrrh in hopes of powering the village crystal for yet another year.

Or something like that.

In Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, you are a caravaner. You carry with you the weapon of your tribe, some armor, some food, and, most importantly, the crystal chalice, used both to repel the miasma and collect the myrrh. On your hunt for myrrh, you will trudge through maze-like dungeons fighting monsters and solving puzzles that often require the aid of a second person, because the fate of your village rests not solely upon your shoulders but also on those of up to three friends—or a moogle—as teamwork is key to surviving the miasma.

And that’s the entire premise of Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, originally released for the Nintendo GameCube on August 8, 2003, and later re-released on August 27, 2020, for nearly every era-appropriate console, including the Nintendo Switch, which was the version I played before writing this essay.

Crystal Chronicles itself is a deceptively simple action role-playing game hiding under a quilt of obtuse gameplay mechanics that are barely explained, such as the artifact system, in which your character progressively gets stronger through the collection of artifacts in lieu of a traditional experience-based system; or the mail system, in which your family sends letters that you can choose to reply to with a canned positive or negative response, of which the benefits are totally nebulous and probably irrelevant; or how the entire story is told through short cutscenes triggered seemingly at random, with the contents of those seemingly random cutscenes themselves also seemingly random, only hinting at a deeper story rather than telling one outright. In fact, most of the cutscenes are inconsequential to the overall plot, existing only to serve the cozy, community-focused ambiance of the game; for example, the numerous cutscenes of your caravan providing helpful advice or trading items or telling stories to other caravans. It’s all very wholesome, pastoral, nomadic stuff; one gets the feeling when playing Crystal Chronicles that all the residents of the game world have put aside their differences to focus on the bigger, extinction-level threat: the miasma.

The mechanical vagueness of the game is so vague that it reminded me of the SaGa video game series, of which the backbone is literally obtuse vagueness—and I was so reminded of SaGa that, at a certain point, I was convinced that Crystal Chronicles must be, in actuality, a secret SaGa game. So when I looked up details on the game on the old World Wide Web of Miasma, I was not surprised to find that Crystal Chronicles was indeed created by the king of obtuse vagueness himself: Akitoshi Kawazu, the creator of the SaGa series. So, somehow, without even consciously seeking it out, I had found myself obsessed with yet another SaGa game, almost as if I am drawn to them by some unknown obtusely vague force—as if the games themselves spew a sort of obtusely vague miasma that magnetically draws in obtusely vague people (i.e., myself).

Thankfully, none of the aforementioned obtusely vague systems seem to impact anything important in the game, and those that do—such as the artifact system—are forgiving enough that you just kind of stumble into figuring them out, meaning you can’t really screw yourself over like in so many other 2000s-era role-playing games. And, besides, the real meat of the game lies not in the vague cutscenes or odd mail system but in the dungeons—wooded streamside paths, log-bridge swamps, lizardman hideouts, fungi forests, caverns of jade and wind, even an ogre’s manor—which are presented in a charming, vibrant, three-dimensional Arcadian low-poly-pastel overhead perspective, wherein you just run around whacking monsters with your sword or racket or spear or whatever until the monsters go poof and drop items or money or artifacts or magicite, the latter enabling the casting of all the classic Final Fantasy spells. And all of this is done with like two or three buttons, meaning it’s very simple stuff. In fact, the combat itself usually boils down to a bait-the-monster-into-attacking-you-but-dodge-at-the-last-second-so-you-can-hit-them-three-times-during-their-idle-frames kind of thing, which is the kind of thing that turns action games into rhythm games when you think about it too hard.

And while Crystal Chronicles’ combat is basic—mundane, even—the whole experience never manages to become dull. In fact, thanks to the presentation, the game is relaxing, almost a zen-like experience at times. The charming, low-poly whimsy of the game makes you want to crawl right through your television set and hop into a crystal caravan yourself—and the remaster is upscaled in such a way that it sacrifices none of the original game’s charm. Not only that, but the musical score perfectly sets the mood with its melodious mixture of breezy strings and pastoral flutes that sound as if they could blow the miasma away all by themselves, entirely composed by Kumi Tanioka, a virtuosic pianist-slash-composer who has created music for nearly thirty games as of the writing of this essay, including Final Fantasy XI (my video game equivalent to crack cocaine).

So while the combat can be boring and some of the mechanics can be vague and obtuse, the whole Crystal Chronicles package is a once-in-a-lifetime something-special kind of thing that you just can’t find anywhere else. It’s the closest thing to a digital nomadic Arcadia that you’re going to get in an action game that is also a role-playing game that is also a Final Fantasy game. It’s idyllic and sylvan and all sorts of majestic. It's like a small-town farmer’s market as opposed to a Publix or a handwritten letter as opposed to a Facebook comment or a backyard jam session as opposed to Coachella or a faded Polaroid as opposed to a heavily-edited Instagram photo or a relaxing bike ride as opposed to riding a Greyhound or a hug as opposed to a heart emoji. Basically, despite the miasma, Crystal Chronicles is a halcyon game.

But the most important thing about Crystal Chronicles is that it’s a game about community. It’s a game about banding together with the ones you love to banish the miasma: the crystal villages thing, the whole caravan thing, the putting-aside-differences thing, and the probably-pointless-mail-system thing. It all serves to reinforce the theme of community. And, by extension, it’s also about friends and family. It’s about working with others despite differences, building trust and friendship with the real, fleshy people around you, and then, when all the myrrh is gathered, going back home—where the heart is—to wind down and spend time with the ones you love.

And the gameplay itself reinforces this community theme because, at its core, Crystal Chronicles is a multiplayer game. In fact, the game was intentionally designed from the ground up with this multiplayer-component in mind; there’s a spell fusion system that allows two or more players to cast spells simultaneously, fusing them into a stronger spell; there are numerous dungeon puzzles that require more than one person to complete; and even traversing dungeons requires someone to carry the crystal chalice, which serves as the protective barrier between your party and the miasma. Meaning that, without someone on your side, you will succumb to the miasma.

In the original GameCube version of Crystal Chronicles, up to four players could join together by connecting their Game Boy Advance systems via GBA-to-GameCube link cables. And this couch co-op aspect was, back in 2002, the game’s most heavily advertised feature. Even the original 2002 North American television commercial made it a point to emphasize the multiplayer aspect, showing four live-action teenagers holding crystals atop a skyscraper, all surrounded by miasma, with the words “who are you?” between them, as if implying that you—the viewer—are literally nothing without someone on your side, hence reinforcing the whole teamwork thing and the whole community thing.

“Use the crystals to expel the mist that poisoned your world. Battle alone or with friends by connecting up to four Game Boy Advance Systems. Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles, only for Nintendo GameCube. Rated T for Teen.” —Narrator. Original Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Commercial. 2002. ^*

The original Crystal Chronicles became a cult classic for a reason: it inspired thousands of millennial kids to put aside their differences, fuse spells, poof monsters, collect myrrh, solve puzzles, and banish the miasma—all while huddled around a single CRT television set with some Mountain Dew and a couple of hand-tossed pepperoni pizzas from Pizza Hut. In fact, being able to say, decades later, that you played Crystal Chronicles with three other people all huddled very close together—adolescent spit and sweat and who knows what else splish-splashing back and forth—while sucking in fantasy-flavored CRT electrolight through your eyeballs and poorly controlling a blurry hero in three-dimensional space with a mushy little GBA d-pad that caused severe blisters over prolonged play is pretty much a badge of honor in the retro-gaming space these days. And while many arguments were had around the GameCube—mainly over who got which artifact at the end of a dungeon or who got the last slice of pizza or whether so-and-so’s mom was truly so fat that her blood type was indeed “ragu sauce”—Crystal Chronicles on the couch with the gang was always a good time.

In short, the original Crystal Chronicles was one of the great couch co-op unifiers of the 2000s—which is why it’s such a shame that Square Enix killed the couch co-op with the 2020 remaster. That’s right: they removed the core in-person multiplayer functionality around which the entire game was built, the same functionality that reinforced the game’s narrative themes so perfectly; they removed it and replaced it with a cheap online substitute.

Solo, the Crystal Chronicles remaster is still enjoyable, and the game is still beautiful peak arcadian cozy times, but the most important element is missing; the thing that tied everything together, the thing that made the game so special: the community element; the way it was designed to basically force you to put aside your differences and play with real-life fleshy people in the same room together; the way it fostered real-life communities. All gone. And this couch co-op aspect reinforced the main themes of the game so well that it’s pretty much mandatory for the full Crystal Chronicles experience, something feels seriously wrong without it—and this is obvious to anyone who has played the original game, so it’s almost as if the remaster team at Square Enix didn’t play the original game at all.

Multiplayer still exists in the remastered version of Crystal Chronicles—but there’s absolutely no built-in local co-op of any kind, which is the important thing here. Instead, there’s only online multiplayer facilitated by Square Enix’s lobby system, which means that A) each player needs their own system and copy of the game, B) each player needs an internet connection, C) each player needs to pay an online subscription fee (depending on the platform on which they play the game), and D) each player needs to contend with some of the worst online play ever implemented in a video game, including frequent rubber-banding that I can only imagine is what orbiting a black hole feels like, frequent disconnects, and a communication system that consists of only a few pages of canned messages that cannot be altered or reliably sent in the heat of the moment, as the teamwork elements of the game require quick coordination with your friends, almost as if the multiplayer was designed around using your voice, which was, in fact, the intended gameplay experience of the original fucking game.

And yes, technically, you and a friend could both buy the game on Nintendo Switch, get in the same room, and then play the game together through the online functionality using separate systems—but even in that scenario, you’re still subject to the stipulations outlined in the previous paragraph’s lettered list. Not only that, but the remaster also removes the ability to explore towns, check family mail, and trade items with other players—so forget about all those thematically relevant gameplay mechanics that reinforce the sense of community that the original game tried so hard to cultivate; instead, the only thing you can do in multiplayer is run dungeons and kill things—that’s it. Needless to say, this all amounts to a pretty much dead online multiplayer experience, so even if you go looking for people to play with online, you won’t find any.

And yes, because there’s some semblance of multiplayer in the Crystal Chronicles remaster, one could argue that there is some semblance of the real-life community element still in the game—but I would totally disagree, because online communities are not real-life communities at all: online communities are faux, fake, pantomime; they’re bullshit, loveless moshpits that tear at the soul and turn us all into monsters.

So yeah, obviously I’m pissed about the lack of couch co-op in the Crystal Chronicles remaster, but it’s bigger than that; it’s not just an unfortunate slip-up on Square Enix’s part—it’s a goddamn tragedy; and it’s a goddamn tragedy not only because it misses the thematic point of the game, but for so many other reasons that go way beyond video games entirely: it’s actually a matter of the self and the soul; it’s a matter of human isolation; it’s a matter of this virtual reality we are constantly being pushed into.

It’s a matter of how the internet fucking sucks and is slowly killing us all.

II, Thesis

The miasma was unleashed upon humanity in August 1991, and ever since then, we have been slowly but surely dying. None of us are immune. First, the miasma turns us into warped versions of ourselves—monsters—and then we die.

We die miserable deaths, surrounded by so many people but still feeling so very alone.

And yes, I’m talking about the internet: the World Wide Web of Miasma. We are all lost in this miasma, starving for myrrh, dying.

At this point, you’re probably rolling your eyes, thinking something like, “Oh boy, here he goes again.” But I am not exaggerating. The miasma is real and it’s killing us. Our flesh may not be decaying any faster than it normally would, but our humanity sure as hell is.

And that’s the thesis, that’s what I really want to cover with this essay—not Crystal Chronicles, not Square Enix dropping the ball, not Nintendo’s shitty online service; none of that.

I want to talk about how the internet is fucking killing us.

III, Miasma’s Effect on Community

“The sun once smiled on this village more than any other. But one day, their crystal's blessing faded. The villagers eagerly awaited their caravan's return; but for them, the crystal would never shine again. It is said that not a single one of them tried to escape. All stood fast waiting for the caravan, hoping to the very end.” —Narrator, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

Back in the early 2000s—I must have been eleven or so—every summer break, every day, I would bring my N64 controller—that classic grey mass with the three handles that everyone held differently and the thumbstick that caused severe bleeding—over to my friend Miles’ house and just sit on his tiny twin-size bed playing Super Smash Bros. on his small CRT television for hours. I remember the room; it was painted white, thick blue clouds near the top of the walls, wooden beams across the ceiling, huge windows with these white gossamer drapes that somehow amplified the sunlight instead of blocking it out, and the whole room was filled with nautical imagery: little anchors all over the walls, paintings of whaling ships and the whales they whaled, even a ship in a bottle resting atop a dresser on which the knobs were colorful fish and the handles were arched dolphins. His dad worked as a waiter at a five-star restaurant, kept a little fishing boat in the garage, but the boat never moved from that spot. Miles' mom later banned Smash Bros. from the house because she felt the violence was giving her son nightmares. When we were a little older, we played Halo on the Xbox in that same room; sometimes half of the neighborhood kids would come over and play with us, taking turns killing each other on that small CRT screen split four ways to eye-watering agony, using those big original fat-boy Xbox controllers that made it feel like your hands were being stretched by some medieval torture device. We even played Crystal Chronicles in that nautical room, on his brother’s GameCube, the three of us each with a Game Boy Advance plugged into the thing, our faces pushed real close to the phosphor, practically becoming one with the electron gun; I remember the first time we defeated the Malboro in the Mushroom Forest: it was early in the morning, like 5 A.M. or something—when the sun just barely hatches from the horizon like the burning chick of a mother phoenix—and we screamed so loudly that their mom woke up, sent me home, and grounded Miles and his brother for a whole week. That was one lonely week. I must have been thirteen or so when that all went down. Eventually, Halo 2 came out, and that consumed our gaming habits for nearly two years, during which time my friend relocated his entire room up to the loft above his garage. So much happened up in that room that it has become an anchor point around which all my teenage memories swirl; it is a place that I am now always trying to capture picture perfect in my mind, remember exactly how it was, recreate the feeling of being there. How I long to return to that loft above the garage. I remember Miles’ mom bought him a huge flat-screen television for that room, and we would all just veg out in front of that thing, eating junk food, playing Halo 2. There was a big couch in there, giving literal meaning to the phrase “couch co-op,” and there was a hatch into the attic, which was full of pink foam and cardboard boxes. We did some serious growing up in that room together, during that Halo 2 phase, around 2004 or so; we got serious girlfriends and started experimenting with weed and alcohol, but we always made time, almost every summer night, to gather around that massive flat-screen television and play video games. Other kids might have had sports or fishing or walking the mall as their pivotal growing-up community experience, but we had video games: multiplayer video games. And when the Xbox 360 arrived, we all got Xbox Live and goofy gamertags and migrated to online multiplayer gaming. We got so lost in that miasma. And while we still played together in that loft-turned-bedroom from time to time, with the introduction of the miasma, something changed, something was different—and I like to think that it wasn’t just us getting older; suddenly, kids who used to come over and play Halo with us opted to stay home and play online instead, because it was easier and they didn’t have to deal with the split-screen aspect of in-person gaming; eventually those kids stopped playing with us entirely, but the Xbox friend list still showed them frequently online, doing their own thing, not responding to our funny voice messages and invites. We didn’t know it at the time, but these online conveniences came with a heavy sacrifice, the sacrifice of something very special. More and more, we opted to stay home, playing online with each other rather than on the couch. We sacrificed community—real, in-the-flesh community—and replaced it with some facsimile of community. A facsimile that felt good at the start but ended up leaving us feeling lost and empty. At the time—I must have been sixteen or seventeen or something—it was easy to rally around online gaming, as it was the hip, cool, convenient teenage gamer zeitgeist, but we weren’t thinking; we were mindlessly following the corporate gaming trends, which were: everything online all the time with a subscription fee forever. We were not thinking about what online gaming might do to us as a community of teenagers who bonded over multiplayer games and how the miasma would ultimately tear our gaming community asunder. Sure, we had a few days here and there, some sleepovers in which we kept the couch co-op dream alive, playing that old bloodshot split-screen, but we never regained that “we’re going over to Miles’ house to play Crystal Chronicles” feeling ever again. And we also got into some big fights, because it was so much easier to be nasty to each other when we weren’t sitting together in the same room, as if we had lost some sort of equalizer; suddenly, kill counts and skill levels and achievement points and which “clan” you were part of became more important than you as a real living breathing human being. And if you didn’t keep up with your friends or meet some arbitrary online-gaming standard, then you “sucked”—and not in this “you suck lol” kind of way, but this serious “you suck as a person and should die” kind of way that seemed totally unironic because no one could tell who was serious and who was just playing around, as our normal in-person tells and quirks got all lost in the miasma. Offline, we were cool; online, we hated each other: we didn’t see each other as real people, and the further we walked into the miasma, the more we lost our humanity. Eventually, we identified as the characters in our profile pictures more so than the people staring back at us in the mirror. And that’s the story of how my childhood gaming community got lost in the miasma.

This whole gamer coming-of-age story serves as a microcosm of what the miasma has done to the gaming community worldwide. Because while the internet has made multiplayer gaming more accessible and, consequently, more popular ever before, it has also made it toxic as hell and more disconnected than ever before, too.

Yes, more people than ever are playing multiplayer online games—competitive shooters, battle arenas, sports stuff, MMOs—but do we actually treat the people we’re playing with—the human beings behind the screen—as real people? Do we extend them the same level of courtesy we would to someone walking by on the street? And if we do, do we think those we’re playing with treat us with that same level of courtesy? Or do we think that, instead, those people might think of us more like non-player characters with funny names, existing only to virtually dominate through the casting of facsimilized fireballs or the gunfire of an ersatz AR-15? And then, do we think that might be why so many people online have no qualms about calling us a “retarded bitch” when we beat them in a game of Call of Duty? Is it then any surprise that, ever since the appearance of the miasma, cooperative multiplayer games have pretty much dropped off the mainstream gaming market, replaced entirely by competitive kill-the-other-player games? And could this be because we’re all shrouded by the miasma, which feeds on our darkest impulses, makes it easier for us to hate each other, and causes us to sling slurs as if we’re in some sort of wild west slur saloon?

Grown adults all over the world are calling each other “retarded bitch” (among other, way more terrible things), throwing controllers, and threatening to kill people—all because they lost in an online computer game. In short, pixels on screens are throwing grown adults into fits of rage. Why is that? What the hell is wrong with these people?

No—what the hell is wrong with us?

The internet—with its ability to connect everyone instantaneously—has turned multiplayer gaming into an impersonal, sit-alone-in-your-room type experience. We have become our gamertag and avatar—not only to others but to ourselves. We identify with our pixelated personas, giving them power over our emotions. And while we are technically playing online with other real people, we are actually playing solo, by ourselves, in our lonesome, single-player, seething in anxiety and rage and loneliness, while pixelated husks bounce around on the screens to which we are hyperfocused on high scores and hedonism. And the real people we’re playing these games with are so numerous and so far away and so easily replaceable and so faceless that we all might as well just be sophisticated computer-controlled bots—alive but dead, there but not really there—and anyone who has played online multiplayer games knows what I’m talking about: that feeling of being digitally surrounded by so many people yet feeling so very alone.

And yet we keep inhaling the miasma, surrounding ourselves with these digital miasma people, tricking ourselves into believing that these online facsimiles of real people can provide real connections, real myrrh, real community. We have turned to the miasma for the very community that the miasma has destroyed, as if the poison is the cure. But we, as individuals, are not solely to blame. Because despite knowing deep down that we’re slowly dying, something in the miasma has monopolized our willpower, making us collectively more resistant to logging out and spending time with each other in the flesh. The miasma has tricked us into thinking that if we were to log out—if we were to banish the miasma—we would be pulling the plug on the only community we have: the very same faux community that the miasma itself facilitated. And thus, by pulling that plug, we fear we would become lonelier, more miserable. Because it’s easy to think that online miasma people are better than no people at all—but are they, really? Why, then, has multiplayer gaming become more about killing digital representations of each other than about cooperating to overcome hardship? Why are we calling each other cruel names, threatening to kill each other over lost games of Halo? Why are we huddled into online voice-chat channels, supposedly surrounded by so many real people, yet simultaneously feeling so disconnected and angry? Why, then, are we more desperate than ever in our search for community if we are already part of a thriving, myrrh-filled community, as the miasma would have us believe? Would not this quest for community within the very thing that harmed community only further facilitate the destruction of community?

Alas, we’re trapped in this paradoxical cycle of miasmic torment: wanting to banish the miasma—regain the in-person communities we’ve lost—yet believing that we have nothing better to replace it with, so instead of banishing the miasma, we continue to rely on the miasma to build these pale digital communities, hoping that one day they might be just as good as the in-person communities we lost to the miasma. So, we let the miasma fester unchecked, believing that it’s better than nothing, believing that there is no other way.

We drink the poison as if it were the cure.

IV, Miasma’s Effect on Us

“So many memories from earlier adventures have dimmed, from the joys of chance encounters to the suspense of my first battles. It would be a pity if the goal of gathering myrrh became the only thing that drove me forward.” —Player’s Diary, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

The miasma is not just destroying gaming communities—it’s destroying all communities.

We all know that mega tech companies have built their entire empires by utilizing the corrupting power of the miasma. And we all know that these tech companies have engineered the miasma in such a way that it algorithmically feeds us what they (the tech companies) believe we want to see based on the things we click, type, or search for on their miasma-enabled devices, as if they are trying to capture our souls for the purpose of turning them into cold, hard cash. And we all know that they use the miasma to collect and share everything about us with other big tech companies with the same profit-driven motive, without regard for how that data is actually being used. And we all know that we are willingly using their miasma-enabled products because they have led us to believe that, without their miasma-enabled products, navigating modern life would be impossible; thus, we begrudgingly persist in this miasma-ridden world because we are led to believe there is no other way—for how would we be able to pay our bills or watch television or listen to music or talk to grandpa or farm dopamine from screens without some sort of miasmic wave going from point A to point B?

But, really, we would all be better off without the miasma.

Consider social media: it feeds on our latent desire to be loved but never actually succeeds in making us feel loved at all—and this is by design, because the moment we start feeling truly loved is the moment we no longer need social media. And social media does this through its most basic functions: allowing us to broadcast our thoughts to potentially billions of others and, importantly, allowing those billions of people to like and share our thoughts. The more likes and shares we receives, the more followers we gain, thus the more popular we become, thus the more quote-unquote loved we feel, and so likes and shares are perceived as validation of our character, a measure of our social worth. This desire for validation is not inherently wrong—it’s actually very human—but it becomes problematic when the validation we seek comes from digital representations of people we do not know personally; these people cannot touch us, they cannot look us in the eye and say, “I really like you,” so that we know that they do, indeed, really like us. And the more we tie our sense of validation to the number of likes and shares and followers we get, the more we reinforce the idea that the people behind the profile pictures are nothing more than a number, a number to be added to our follower counts; thus, the miasma tricks us into dehumanizing each other, which, in turn, makes it easier for us to persist in the dehumanized miasma world we call “social media.” It’s a dehumanization feedback loop. And due to the sheer scope of social media, our digital voices become lost in the massive cloud of digital people, so the majority of us go totally unknown, posting into the void, hoping for some sort of engagement but never actually getting it; and even if we do get engagement, we start to wonder, “Why does this other person have more engagement than me? What’s so good about them? What do they have that I don’t have?” And so we are left comparing ourselves to digital representations of people. And since engagement is the main goal of social media, we present exaggerated versions of ourselves, artificially min-maxing our coolness stat, so that other people will think we’re interesting, all in an effort to drive engagement. In short, on social media, we become fake versions of ourselves, all while comparing ourselves to fake versions of other people, so we end up chasing a fake goal that can never be attained because it’s fake to begin with, thus we all become more and more fake the more we use social media. It’s a feedback loop of fakeness that results in feeling eternally starved for validation, forever reaching for this impossible fake goal, wondering what the hell is wrong with us when we can’t attain the fake goal—when in reality, nothing is wrong with us at all: we’re only engaging in the natural human desire for community, we’re just doing it in a miasma-ridden pit of fakeness.

Eventually, we realize that if we mold our fake online personas to fit into a certain social group, we can extend the reach of our posts and thus gain more likes and shares and followers, supposedly gaining the validation we seek by adopting some of the style, rhetoric, and beliefs of the community we are trying to mold ourselves into. And one might argue this is not so different from real-life social groups, but it differs in one crucial aspect: scope. There are just so many damn people on social media. And this raises the question: are we wired for this level of exposure? Can we stay healthy—mentally—when potentially millions of eyes are on us at all times? This question is especially important when we consider that the miasma has dehumanized us to a point where it’s easier than ever to be cruel to each other online; and, being the sensitive social creatures that we are, we often take negativity more personally than positivity; a single negative comment can dominate our thoughts for weeks, spiraling us into despair; and misery loves company, so we are more likely to be cruel to others when they are cruel to us, thus our cruelty just begets more cruelty, and thus we contribute to a feedback loop of cruelty.

And that’s the rub, really: the overwhelming negativity that the miasma brings out of people. But it’s worse than that because the miasma doesn’t just draw negativity out of us; it also encourages it, strengthens it, and then spreads this superpowered negativity across the entire world. This happens because, in the short term, negativity feels better than positivity, as if we’re expressing some sort of righteous anger over a perceived wrong. But, in the long term, this negativity builds up and makes our lives worse by pushing away the people we love and fostering a deep cynicism of all things. And since the miasma has effectively destroyed our attention spans by allowing us unfettered access to new content (and pushing it to us automatically), it’s easier than ever to give in to short-term satisfaction (i.e., negativity), as negativity elicits more immediate online engagement and, thus, more immediate validation, whereas positivity garners less engagement and, therefore, less immediate validation, even though positivity yields far better long-term results on us as real living people.

Positivity begets positivity; negativity begets negativity. This is neither deep nor profound—it’s the golden rule, a basic principle we seem to have forgotten under the influence of the miasma.

And, as proof that I’m not just talking out of my ass: If we go on Reddit or Lemmy or Twitter or Mastodon or any other online social platform right now, we’ll find that the most popular content is always negative. For example, the top post on Reddit (as of the moment of writing this sentence) is “Alliance between Meta and Trump is likely to create informational, economic, and geopolitical conflicts around the world” (and when I came back a day later to proofread this paragraph, the top post was “Boris Johnson brands Vladimir Putin a 'f****** idiot' over alleged imperial ambitions”). The rest of the top-posts list was (and still is) dominated by Trump stories—a person who is supposedly despised by the online progressives (who make up the majority of Reddit), yet the online progressives just can’t stop constantly talking about him for some reason. So, for someone we supposedly despise, Trump sure as hell owns a lot of our mental real estate. And considering this obsession with people we supposedly despise, is it really so surprising that online discourse is dominated by negativity? And what does participating in this negative discourse really accomplish? What does sitting behind a computer screen while typing up angry posts about Trump really change in the world? Does it make Trump less popular? And, if so, why did more people vote for Trump in the 2024 U.S. presidential election than they did in the 2016 and 2020 elections? It doesn’t seem like screaming and crying about the people we despise actually succeeds in harming the people we despise—if anything, it seems to make them stronger. And these online services and news networks know this to be true but continue to spread the negativity anyway because it’s profitable; CNN, for example, whose entire business model at this point is basically complaining about Trump, to the point that Trump may as well be bankrolling their entire operation. The same could be said about Reddit or any other news aggregation service powered by miasma; the leadership of these services does not care about our mental health; they care about profits, and negativity is profitable. So, the more we use these services, the more negativity we are exposed to, thus the more negative we become.

This is all to say that our whole approach here is totally backwards, as if we are operating under the mathematical assumption that negativity plus negativity equals positivity—not just more negativity. And, considering how backwards all of this is, is it really so surprising that this negativity just keeps spreading, as if we are powering some sort of dark battery that itself keeps the negativity flowing? It’s definitionally another feedback loop: the more we focus on the things we despise, the more those things gain power over us. Common sense would dictate that we should, therefore, try not to vocally despise anything—we ought to move on with our lives, focus on the positive, and stop letting the miasma amplify our negativity. And yes, that means that I am, indeed, suggesting that we totally ignore people like Trump and, instead, focus on driving real positive outcomes in our society rather than hooking up dark battery electrodes to our heads and screaming real loud.

But there’s more; we’ve really only just scratched the surface of the problem—we haven’t even covered the most harmful tool in the miasma’s repertoire of evil tools.

The most dangerous aspect of the miasma is the algorithms. These algorithms learn surface-level details about us—like our entire search histories—and then use this information to serve content and advertisements that they believe we will be most likely to engage with. This process radicalizes us in whichever direction proves most profitable for the corporate dragon overlords of the platforms on which these algorithms run. But not only does this fill the treasure room of some nasty corporate dragon, it also reinforces harmful stereotypes and spreads negativity, which has the additional effect of polarizing humanity more than ever before, as is self-evident from just watching the news or scrolling social media for five seconds.

Take YouTube, for example: Watching just one Fox News video turns your suggested-video feed into a hellhole of far-right propaganda, watching one CNN video does the same just on the opposite end of the political compass, watching one smooth jazz video makes the algorithm think you’re some sort of jazz pianist who wants to watch technical jazz breakdowns, one Cowboy Bebop clip suddenly means you’re a basement-dwelling otaku obsessed with large-breasted cartoon women, one Lego tutorial assumes you want to watch adults in bowties talk about “rare bricks” and Bionicle lore, one Lilo and Stitch clip means you’re suddenly a Disney adult who wants to watch videos on saving money at Disney World by having groceries shipped from Amazon to your hotel room, one Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles tutorial means you want to watch ProSteve speedrun every Final Fantasy game while he sweats profusely through his wife beater while breathing real heavy into a $400 Green Yeti microphone or whatever, and one video on how to change the oil in your car means you want to watch videos on how the January 6th U.S. Capitol riot was actually a peaceful protest and then a video on how schools want to install litter boxes in the bathrooms for kids who think that they’re cats or something and then a video about how different races have different average IQs thus should be treated differently and then a video about how trans people aren’t real because gender is purely biological and then a video on how liberals are trying to mutilate your kid’s genitals or whatever—because now the algorithm has reached the point where it assumes, based on your original interest in changing car oil, that you're also interested in other barely-adjacent things because some other users who share your interest in changing car oil also happen to be interested in some of that vile stuff listed earlier in this egregious run-on sentence. So, the algorithm basically says, “If you like fixing cars then you must like far-right propaganda videos too because some other people who like fixing cars also like far-right propaganda videos.” And in this way, the algorithm not only pushes people into dangerous extremist echo chambers but also reinforces the very stereotypes that fuel these dangerous extremist echo chambers. They put us in a box, then they shake the box. The algorithm isn't designed to see us as individual people; instead, it views us as a collection of data to solve a math problem, which, if written as a question, would be: “How do I (the algorithm) make as much profit as possible for my corporate masters by keeping people hooked on YouTube for as long as possible?” And to this end, the algorithm treats us the same way the miasma has conditioned us to treat everyone else: like numbers. Dehumanized. On top of all this, YouTube autoplays these suggested videos for us, so we don't even have to click on anything—the garbage is just beamed straight into our eyeballs automatically—making it easy to slip into a hole of the algorithm's choosing. We're at a point where our interests are no longer decided by us as people, but instead by complicated lines of code that have run wild. And so, our free will is being subverted by machines. No one is immune. It's not just YouTube doing this—nearly every popular online platform is engaging in some form of automated algorithmic stereotyping. This stuff is in our pockets right now. And, considering that negativity is such a strong driver of human interaction online, the algorithms pick up on this negativity, assume it’s what we want to see more of, and just keep sending us more and more negativity, and, in this way, the algorithms ensure that the dark battery of miasma never runs dry.

And because of this polarization, we can’t separate fact from fiction anymore, as the algorithms don’t care about truth; they care about clicks and popularity. Any online news story can become popular and spread like wildfire, regardless of its veracity, as long as one of our polarized miasma camps engages with it enough times. Take the United States, for example: half of the country believes one thing while the other half believes something totally contradictory about the same thing; take the January 6th Capitol Riot, half of the country believes that it was actually a peaceful protest subverted by bad liberal actors (or something), while the other half of the country believes it was a real riot incited by the President of the United States himself; take the 2020 election, half the country believes the voting was rigged and can cite articles containing quote-unquote proof that it was rigged, while the other half believes it was a fair election and can provide articles with proof backing that claim. We are so polarized about what is “true” and “false” that truth no longer even matters—truth is whatever our polarized camp wants it to be. Half of the country believes that Haitian immigrants are sneaking into people’s homes and eating their pets, despite no evidence supporting this and the original source having fully recanted the story. We don’t know what truth is anymore because there is just too much conflicting information out there, all of which gets equal engagement because we gravitate toward whatever quote-unquote truth our camps want us to believe, otherwise we risk ostracizing ourselves from our camps. In short, truth is dead.

Some of us like to think we’re immune to all of this. Some of us claim that we only use the miasma to find like-minded people whom we can relate to, for community. Some of us might even refuse to use platforms that run malicious algorithms. This is all a noble pursuit: attempting to use the miasma in such a way that bypasses the negativity, the endless validation-seeking, and the polarizing aspects of it. But while this pursuit is noble, it is also incredibly naive because it’s based on a fundamental misunderstanding of both the purpose of community and how the miasma itself operates. Seeking community is the same as seeking validation—we seek like-minded communities so that we can feel assured about ourselves, to validate the part of ourselves that wants to feel loved by others, and that’s fine because we are social creatures; that’s what we do. But the problem is, we will never be happy solely relying on the internet to provide us with a sense of community, because online communities are toxic as hell regardless of whatever common ground binds these online communities together, and this is because online communities are communities built upon a foundation of negativity within the miasma, which itself is fucking toxic as hell. And even if we filter ourselves into a community of anti-algorithm, anti-miasma people, we are still operating within the miasma. And that hypothetical anti-algorithm, anti-miasma community is still built on negativity: negativity against the algorithms and the miasma itself. So, when we huddle together in these anti-algorithm, anti-miasma, “bring back the golden age of the internet”-type communities, we are only being tricked by the miasma into continuing to use the miasma. The miasma is making us think that we are somehow above the miasma because we keep saying how awful the miasma is—but we’re still lost in the goddamn miasma.

We can’t expect to banish the miasma by using the miasma itself. The poison is not the cure.

But I realize that I am just as lost in the miasma as everyone else—even this essay exists within the miasma and is doing the very thing it is criticizing: using the miasma to criticize the miasma. I also realize that this whole essay has indeed been pretty negative and therefore might just contribute to the feedback loop of negativity described herein. So, instead of continuing to power the dark battery of miasma, I’m going to focus on the positive things going forward.

I’m going to focus on what we can do about it.

V, Banish the Miasma

“Remember, you journey not for yourself alone, but for everyone in your village.” —Sol Racht, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles

To put it in Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles terms, we are our own crystal chalice. The miasma swirls all around us, trying to break through our crystal barrier. Over time, our barriers, powered by myrrh—compassion, warmth, love—weaken. Our myrrh dries up. So we venture out into the miasma, collecting myrrh from within its toxic fog, all to bring this myrrh back to our village, to keep both ourselves and the people we love alive a little while longer. But the myrrh we gather is corrupted, tainted by the miasma. And so, our crystal chalices continue to run dry, forcing us to repeat our quests for myrrh, and thus we venture out into the miasma once more. But the more we search for myrrh within the miasma, the more we expose ourselves to the miasma’s corruption, and so, over time, we become more corrupted ourselves.

So the question becomes: how do we banish the miasma?

And with the remainder of this essay, I’m going to attempt to answer that question by offering some prescriptive advice on how to overcome the miasmic problems outlined in the previous chapters, those being: the dark battery of negativity, the feedback loop of fakeness, the problem of polarization, the truth or lack thereof, and the erosion of community. And I’ll try to keep it short, as my suggestions are simple in words but difficult in practice, requiring significant self-control and introspection. (And, to be clear, I’m not claiming to be a paragon of self-control or introspection myself—this advice is as much for me as it is for anyone else.)

Negativity begets negativity, so the first step to removing negativity from our lives is to recognize the things around us that are negative, and the second step is to exorcise those things with extreme prejudice. This may be certain people, like a racist friend, or it may be certain online services, like mainstream news feeds and link aggregators like Reddit, as these services thrive on negativity as a business model. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that if we spend all day on websites that only tell us how fucked up everything is, we’re going to think about how fucked up everything is; and that’s going to put us in a bad mood, which, in turn, puts those around us in a bad mood, which, in turn, comes back around to put ourselves in an even worse mood, and so on and so forth.

And the final and most important step to removing negativity is recognizing that positivity begets positivity and that, largely, positivity is a matter of perspective. Yes, there are terrible things going on in the world, but really, what can we do about every little terrible thing? Dwelling on these terrible things is only going to put us in a negative mood for ultimately no reason, as many things are outside our control. So, unless we’re actually going to do something about Trump’s most recent stupid thing, for example, there’s really no point in paying attention or engaging at all—complaining about him online is not going to produce any positive outcomes; it’s only going to make us unhappier. Instead of thinking, “Wow, this sucks, we’re all doomed,” we ought to be thinking, “What can I do to help in this situation?” And if there’s nothing we can do, we ought to instead focus on the positive things in our lives—which will be different for everyone.

I realize that things like illness or extreme hardship can make it hard for us to be positive, but even in those situations, bemoaning our hardship instead of trying to overcome it will only make our short lives more negative than they need to be. Hardship plus negativity equals hardship with negativity, whereas hardship plus positivity equals hardship with positivity. The math is not complicated. Of course, being positive is much harder than being negative, as negativity often feels justified in some selfish, woe-is-me sort of way. It takes real self-control and mental fortitude to remain positive in the face of hardship, and these characteristics don’t just magically manifest by reading an essay or self-help book or whatever; instead, these characteristics develop over time, after a total reevaluation of one's self and then prolonged conditioning through sheer force of will. But using the difficulty of positivity as an excuse not to be positive would be foolish and harmful to the people around us, as positivity is contagious; our positivity will make those around us feel positive as well, which, in turn, powers a bright battery as opposed to a dark battery.

The feedback loop of fakeness, too, vanishes in the presence of positivity. Online, we are inclined to appear as cool as possible, presenting our lives as ideal, as if we have everything figured out. We do this fake, performative song and dance so that other people engage with us, validate us, and provide us with some sense of community. Then we compare ourselves to other fake people, perpetuating profound fakeness. But this all stems from a place of negativity—a dissatisfaction with the self that causes us to feel lesser than other people. Part of this negativity comes from the very fact that we are using the miasma—social media—to begin with, as it’s designed for this sort of fake comparative analysis, in which we are comparing ourselves to people who are going to great lengths to seem as cool as possible. Thus, we are comparing ourselves to an impossible, fake thing; an unobtainable goal that only leads to despair. But we don’t need to compare ourselves to anyone, because we will never be comparable; we are all different people, and trying to be like someone else ignores this simple fact. And, knowing that social media inspires this fakeness—this worship of numbers, this dehumanization, this negativity—we ought to exorcise it from our lives with extreme prejudice, because any community we find on social media, in the miasma, is a false community built on negativity; it is not, and never will be, a replacement for in-person community.

And, as social media facilitates a dehumanization of us all, exorcising it from our lives not only helps with our own personal mental health but also addresses the problem of polarization. Because once we exorcise social media, we will start to see each other as real people again, not as fake avatar people who are just left or right or black or white or whatever. Yes, polarization will still exist—as it always has (a topic for another essay)—but, if we remove social media, we will become less polarized, because, at present, it’s far too easy to call for violence when we view those we’re targeting as fake, dehumanized avatar people instead of fleshy, real-life people that actually bleed.

The miasma has used all these tools—social media, link aggregators, news networks, and algorithms—to trick us into believing that, if we don’t use them, we will be stumbling around in the dark of modern life, uninformed about what is going on around us, lost and hopeless. The irony, however, is that the more the miasma informs us about what is going on around us, the less we become informed about what’s going on inside ourselves. Because the news that the miasma delivers to us is often so fraught with misinformation and half-truths that it’s nearly impossible to tell fact from fiction, and the information that is accurate is either inconsequential to our daily lives or outside of our sphere of influence, serving only to make us fearful, which in turn makes us more negative. But these truths—or lack-thereofs—are the miasma’s truths, not ours. The only truth that matters is the truth of ourselves and those around us; understanding ourselves, becoming wiser, gaining knowledge—not physical knowledge of tangible things and events, but metaphysical knowledge of ourselves—is truth. The more we understand ourselves—why we do the things we do, why we feel the way we feel—the more we will, in turn, better understand the people around us; a radical self-interest that produces a radical empathy. Knowing the latest Trump scandal will not bring us closer to the truth, because truth comes from within. So, instead of focusing on the news or the top-rated social media posts of the week or whatever, we ought to focus on understanding ourselves and the people we spend time with in the fleshy world outside of the miasma.

But people aren’t going to just stop using the miasma—so simply saying, “stop doing the bad thing!” is a naive solution to these complicated problems, especially when considered on a global scale. However, this essay isn’t really aimed at a global audience—despite some of the exaggerated language used herein—instead, it’s aimed at anyone who feels disconnected from the world, despite being supposedly connected to so many people; it’s aimed any anyone who wants to stop feeling so negative all the time; it’s aimed at whoever needs it.

The beginning of this essay mentioned “the golden age,” a time before the miasma—a time when people were good to each other. It asked, “Can we bring back the golden age?” But this was sort of a rhetorical trick, because the golden age didn’t actually go anywhere. It’s still in the same place it always was: in us. “The golden age” is a construct, something we make ourselves—each and every one of us—a byproduct of our own personal behavior and how we treat one another. It takes a crystal village. And while the miasma has made us more monstrous, the golden age is still right there, inside all of us; all we have to do is step outside of the miasma.

But that’s another trick, too—the miasma—because the miasma isn’t really evil at all. How could it be? It’s not conscious. It has no intentionality. The miasma is just a thing we made, a powerful thing we made that has a powerful effect on us—but it’s something that we can control. Each and every one of us, every day, makes a choice to engage with the miasma. So, to banish the miasma, we just need to exercise a little self-control. That’s it. The next time we feel the urge to look at our phones or doomscroll at our desks when we could be doing literally anything else—like interacting with a real person—we only need to recognize that that urge exists and refuse it. We can step out of the miasma whenever we want.

So, for the final problem—the erosion of community—we’re not going to find the solution in the miasma, which means we’re not going to find the solution here in this essay, which itself exists in the miasma. Because the poison is not the cure.

But the solution is nearby—it’s actually really close, within arm's reach.

In fact, it’s right there, just beyond the screen.

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If this essay made you feel something, please let me know via email at f0rrest@pm.me.

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#essay #FinalFantasyCrystalChronicles #ComputerGames #autobiographical #ethics

(This is a cut chapter from the essay “Lost in the Miasma” that I felt didn't fit with the overarching theme of the essay, but I still wanted to publish it, as it captures some of my thoughts on the modern gaming industry and works by itself as a short contained essay.)

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The miasma—or the internet—has made gaming as a whole worse for the consumer on a physical, technical level; it has corrupted the games industry to such an extent that game development is now pretty much only about making as much money as possible as quickly as possible as easily as possible while ignoring all ethical values and disregarding the consumer almost entirely. The miasma has enabled a gross disregard for game preservation, player feedback, and, most importantly, the overall quality of the games themselves, all the while making it easier than ever to forever milk cash out of the player through endless low-effort downloadable content, microtransactions, and by pushing fake money purchased with real money that is then used to purchase dumb mystery boxes that contain dumb prizes chosen basically at random, which amounts to literal gambling.

And since many gamers are, in fact, children, this gambling is thus targeted at children, despite the fact that even the state of Las Vegas (the most morally dubious state in the United States, and the de facto authority on gambling, pretty much) has made gambling illegal for anyone under the age of 21—so, these mega games companies are using their miasma games to somehow get around established common-sense gambling laws that even the most questionable state governments abide by; i.e., games companies are being flat-out fucking evil by taking advantage of children all while smoking flavored miasma through a gigantic gold-encrusted hookah pipe funded by their ill-gotten child-gambling dollars.

Combine this gambling thing with the fact that, for a game like the Crystal Chronicles remaster—wherein the multiplayer relies on the existence of miasma (online) servers run by greedy miasma companies—the moment these greedy miasma companies decide to stop hosting the servers, the multiplayer aspect of the game ceases to exist. So, in short, an aspect of the game will eventually be inaccessible at a random date, meaning that, on top of modern games incorporating gambling into the gameplay itself, consumers are also gambling on the literal ability to boot up and play the game at all, as many games are dependent on the miasma to even run in this year 2025 of our Lord. And this is especially problematic for MMOs, as, once the servers are shut down, the MMO itself is pretty much gone for good. We are paying more for an experience rather than any tangible, long-lasting thing—and this is the new normal for gaming, a fact that games companies don’t want us to think about because, typically, when we spend money on stuff, we expect to get something that we can keep (and access) for an indefinite period of time—unless we consider buying games more akin to food, movie tickets, or theme park admissions, which is indeed how modern games companies want us to think of gaming because it serves their fat pockets.

The main reason the games industry has unanimously pushed so hard for digital-only is so that we’ll forget that games were something we could once hold in our hands, observing the cool cover art and flipping through the glossy paper manuals; instead, they want us to see games more as ephemeral experiences to be resold over and over again; think Nintendo reselling their classic games on each new platform without the option to transfer your purchase from one platform to the next—you will, instead, buy Metroid Fusion twenty times because why the hell not.

It’s planned obsolescence for something that doesn’t have to become obsolescent at all, really; it’s the ability for game companies to say, “The Crystal Chronicles Remaster multiplayer servers are being taken down, so if you want to play multiplayer Crystal Chronicles going forward, you should buy Crystal Chronicles Remaster Remaster, which is a remaster of the original Crystal Chronicles Remaster, which, of course, is a remaster of the original Crystal Chronicles” and so on. And I’m not saying every online multiplayer game need be supported forever—just that, if the game has a multiplayer component, that component should be accessible through other means, such as local play, so that, when the online servers inevitably cease to exist, the game is still fully playable with all modes intact.

And it makes sense why a games company in 2025 wouldn’t want to add local play to multiplayer games, because, long-term, adding offline options is not financially lucrative—it prevents the endless reselling of remakes and rereleases and remasters. And while this “planned obsolescence” has been happening in other industries for years, it was not this blatantly in-your-face in the gaming industry until the appearance of the miasma. And I’m not naive; I know that all businesses exist to make money, so I’m not, like, shocked or anything that games companies are doing this. I’m just pointing out the fact that, before the miasma, it was way harder for a games company to ship customers ephemeral garbage and get away with it. And now that the miasma has totally permeated every inch of our culture and society, it has become incredibly easy for games companies to do just that—screw us over—while somehow simultaneously pulling the wool over our eyes such that we’re still buying their ephemeral-garbage games and the sequels to those ephemeral-garbage games and the remasters of those ephemeral-garbage games as if this whole thing isn’t totally fucked.

But it doesn’t have to be this way: we can stop it. We can stop buying the ephemeral garbage. We control our wallets—not Epic, not Valve, not EA, not Activision, not Square Enix.

And if you really want to play some of the slop these vile companies put out, then stop and think for a moment: Do you really want to support an industry that really only cares about online-only microtransaction-filled gambling games, many of which are targeted at children?

We do not have to play the newest games all the time—in fact, if we are, we’re pretty much supporting an industry that is actively trying to get children to gamble using mom’s credit card.

We compromise our values every day, simply by being part of a system that values capital over all else, including values themselves. So why compromise our values on this, when it’s so easy to just not purchase video games from morally dubious companies? These companies want us to be followers, chasing every new gaming trend; they want us to feel like we’re missing out—not just if we don’t play the newest game immediately, but also if we don’t buy the grand deluxe edition complete with limited-edition art book and 1:12 scale statuette of the game’s main character; they want us like little consumer puppets, dancing by the strings connected to their massive shadowy hands. But we don’t have to be their puppets. We don’t have to purchase from them. All we have to do is just not input our credit card information. It’s that simple.

There are literally thousands of old games out there that I know for a fact you—the reader (yes, I am writing directly to you right now)—have not played, and many of those games do not suffer from any of the problems covered in this essay. Obtain those games ethically, as you see fit; play them. Know that the corporate-induced FOMO is all in your head. Stop following trends. Stop contributing to the spread of miasma. Stop supporting corporate dragons. Unsubscribe from all their email communications. Stop interacting with their social media accounts. Stop reposting news about their upcoming games that aren't even out yet but somehow have already “gone gold” and received five-star reviews from all the major games publications—can’t you see that they’re manipulating you, that they’re using you for free advertising? You do not work for these companies. Brand loyalty is a marketing scheme. Snap out of your soul sickness.

Start the miasma detox—before it’s too late.

I know that you can become unmarketable, ungovernable, unbuyable. You can become a corporate dragon slayer.

You have the power.

I believe in you.

---

#gaming #ethics #essay

Wolf 3D (PC DOS) In middle school, I had a fantastic teacher named Mr. Ziegler. He taught our little class a ton of interesting and fun things, but he also trusted us and sometimes left us to work unsupervised. Abusing this trust, I was messing around one day with the singular classroom computer. This was in the days before broadband internet, before thumb drives, before CD drives. It was a DOS computer, with some frontend tacked on that showed a list of programs. The top entry, which at the time I had no conception of what it might be, was titled WOLF 3D. Hitting enter on that opened my mind to a whole new world. Videogames were not exactly new, but then were somewhat primitive and rare, so seeing a texture-mapped 3D space filled with machine gun toting nazis shouting at the player was wholly new and unexpected.

Classroom work came to a halt as everyone gradually noticed the game I was playing and Mr. Ziegler eventually had to intervene. To his credit, he harnessed our curiosity about the game into a reward for work well done later, but that first taste of FPS goodness stuck in my brain permanently.

Doom ][ (PC, DOS/WIN95) This was the big one, the grand duke of FPS games. The introduction of the super shotgun to the universe.

I somehow missed the original Doom, but made up for it in the fervor that I pursued the sequel. I played the first few levels so much that I could probably draw them from memory. This is where I got into mods and my first attempts at level building.

It’s also where I found out about the huge online community of people making stuff for Doom. I eventually downloaded some total conversions, Ultimate Doom 2X, Doom 2X Gold, and Doom 2 X-Treme. They were part of a trilogy, with custom enemies and levels, modified weapon characteristics, and graphics taken from other Doom mods. The maker, Chuck Lai, even changed the cheat codes, which forced me play through them honestly and made the experience one of the most fun of those early years in the modding scene.

Half-life 2 (Xbox) Despite being mainly a PC gamer throughout my life, I first played this on the Orange Box collection for the Xbox 360. I sat my chair squarely in front of the good old tube TV, probably too close, as I prepared to immerse myself in the sequel to one of the best games ever made.

The game did not disappoint! It pioneered so many things that modern games accept as standard, which is one of the reasons that it holds up so well today. I’ve heard it likened to Citizen Kane, in that watching it or playing it today it just feels like a good game, but at the time so many of its techniques were revolutionary and copied endlessly by media afterwards.

I have a hard time imagining a better value than getting all three games of the Orange Box together at one price. Portal itself was an instant classic and hilarious. TF2 is still going today, and playing HL2 on the Xbox 360 still seems somewhat miraculous. A true cornerstone in gaming history.

Pong (?) While my parents had good intentions buying me presents for birthdays and holidays, their budget and lack of knowledge on the topic led to some interesting times. One of the most interesting was a hand-me-down relic of at least ten years prior. It was a single game console that plugged into your TV and came with two ‘controllers.’ That one game was a generic knockoff variation on Pong.

Now this was in the early 90s, we had a NES and knew of the new SNES and Genesis systems available out there. This Pong console was probably from the 70s, one step removed from electromechanical devices like pinball tables.

It came with physical switches on the controllers that allowed you to adjust the difficulty, the size of the paddle, the speed of the ball and other parameters. I couldn’t get my sister interested in competitive Pong, so the unit got handed down to kids even less fortunate than us. I have a hard time imagining they had much fun with it.

Planescape: Torment (PC) This was second on my PC RPG playlist, right after Baldur’s Gate 2. While BG2 got me used to D&D 3.5-era rules, Planescape turned all that on its head. Here you could improve base stats through dialogue and leveling up, you could change class whenever you wanted, there were barely any swords in the game and combat took a back seat to dialogue and character interactions.

I got lucky in playing through this before the era of rampant spoilers. My first playthrough used no guides or walkthroughs; I went in blind and excited. Since I want to preserve the plot for any people potentially reading this, I won’t go into details, but this game featured the synergy of gameplay and plot in a way that few others have done before or since.

And it’s all incredibly written! So many wild concepts come part and parcel with the Planescape setting and the writers made full use. Wrapping the plot around a character that’s immortal and still retaining a sense of stakes and progression is no small feat.

Ninja Gaiden (Xbox) Another indelible memory is that of sitting on the communal couch in the house I shared with way too many friends from college, playing my original Xbox. I was wowed by the return of the NES-era Ninja Gaiden into a fantastic 3D brawler / action game. Being a central congregation area, the basement couch also frequently provided an audience for my ninja escapades.

While others quickly bounced off the title due to its rather severe difficulty, I persevered. I got way into the game and my compatriots enjoyed watching me taking down the game’s array of giant skeletal dragons, demon lords and other assorted mutants. As with any group activity, it quickly turned to trash talking the enemies as I beat them down. This morphed into a stupid little song I would end up singing as I played. I’ll preserve the lyrics for posterity here:

You're fucking shit up and you don't even know what shit you broke, bitch. Bitch.

Halo 2 (Xbox) This is another game linked with a specific point in my life. I was in school and had made some fantastic new friends, all of whom were also into nerdy pastimes like myself. Comics, cartoons, and videogames were regular topics of conversation. As we all enjoyed relatively similar games, we all got heavily into Halo 2 upon its release.

We regularly played splitscreen together. I was never a big console FPS player, but I got good in a relatively small timeframe and was able to dominate just about every style of gameplay offered by the title. So we had to up our game. We took our Xbox on the road, attending console LAN parties, hooking up multiple controllers and TVs together to battle against other teams of players. We even ventured into that most forbidden of areas, online play.

Halo 2 offered a ton of options for playing online, including a Forge mode that allowed changes to the basic systems of the game. I fondly remember playing infected maps, where one player would start being able to run at ridiculous speeds but having no shields and only an energy sword for a weapon. Every player they killed would join the infected team until everyone was converted. The other team had the regular array of weapons and a fortress to hide out in and defend. Between that and racing four wheelers with rocket launchers, we had a blast. So many fond memories of that time and place in my life.

Carmageddon 2 (PC Win95) I was a PC gamer for a long time, but that doesn’t mean I always had the peripherals to go with it. I played through many PC racing games without the benefit of analogue steering or analogue braking, using only a keyboard. Carmageddon 2 was one of those games.

Carmageddon 2 was the full-3D sequel to the hilarious and bloody original. It stands out even today with its over-the-top ability to run over pedestrians for bonuses. I loved it then for its surprisingly detailed car deformation models and twisted sense of humor.

You could smash off the bumper, destroy the quarter panels and see them go flying off, and break parts off of opponents cars as well. You could even split your car evenly down the middle, which would only occasionally not kill you and end your run.

The wacky powerups contributed to this game’s sensibilities, giving you among other things a giant cartoon spring to push pedestrians or other drivers away from you. It also played with the gravity, giving both moon and Venus powerups which made you undriveably floaty or unbelievably heavy respectively.

I had a million fun times with this game, smashing other cars, pedestrians and the occasional cow or reindeer through the varied and expansive levels. The ski resort, amusement park, mine and nuclear power plant all still live fondly in my memories. I’m still waiting for a proper sequel to this one, but I don’t expect to be satisfied any time soon.

Diablo 2 (PC) This game. Oh, this game. I played Diablo 2 far, far too much in college. I was hooked more than any other game I have played before or since. Endless Pindle runs, Mephisto runs, trying to get my Necromancer up to level 99. So many good memories.

But I also played so much that I ended up late for class on several occasions. I rejected far too many social interactions in favor of that last bit of exp. I bought items off of eBay, for Christ’s sake! Mistakes were made. Time was not merely wasted, but executed with prejudice.

But for all the good and the bad, this game sticks with me. It pioneered the modern skinner-box-style of gameplay that so many others have since incorporated. It’s addictive qualities started many conversations about predatory mechanics in games. It spawned so many other ARPGs, like Path of Exile and further Diablo sequels. For better and worse, this was a turning point for gaming at large.

Super Mario Bros 3 (NES) I had a big, old tube TV in my basement growing up where I played NES games. The TV was so old, it didn’t have RCA jacks for video in, only two wires to hook an antenna up to. But we got the NES running nonetheless, so me and my sister played on it all the time.

Mario 3, the best of the NES Mario games, was either a Christmas or birthday addition to our game library, I don’t remember which. I do remember my sister and I taking turns playing the 2-player version for hours in the basement. Since it was brand new, we had gotten to the boss of the first world and were taking turns getting killed by him over and over. The frustration grew as did the volume of our disappointed outbursts. Eventually our parents came downstairs and grounded us both for cursing at the TV, although to this day I maintain my innocence.

Final Fantasy (NES) You always remember your first. Final Fantasy was the first RPG I ever played.

I had the Nintendo Power special issue solely devoted to Final Fantasy. I had read it cover to cover countless times, imagining the adventures I could have. It took years and buying a used copy, but eventually I did get to dive into its world.

I remember endless grinding for gold, constant referrals to the strategy guide to pick only the best spells for my party, checking where to find items in dungeons, and the peninsula northeast of Provoka; the best grinding spot in the game.

I still play different versions of this classic game to see what twists and improvements they’ve added. But I’m always surprised how well the core of the game holds up, how well the curve of enjoyment bends with the curve of the gameplay and story complexity. Hats off to you, NES Final Fantasy.

Seaman (DC) This game came along for me in the aftermath of the death of the Dreamcast. Games were cheap as the hardware stopped production, ceding this round of the console wars to the Playstation 2. I picked this one up after hearing how weird it was from various gaming websites and magazines.

They weren’t kidding. After an intro by Leonard Nimoy, you’re put in charge of a few eggs bobbing in a virtual aquarium. Gradually the eggs hatch into fish with human faces and eventually learn to talk. This is where the microphone peripheral comes in, as you can answer the questions they pose and they will remember your responses.

I played this in my dorm room at college, baffling both myself and any passers-by. This kind of wild interactivity and odd real-time gameplay has to my mind never even been attempted to be replicated. This was the strength of the Dreamcast, it was a place to take these kind of wild swings. In return it offered gameplay experiences never to be forgotten, if only for their peek into the future.

Duke Nukem 3D (PC) My memories of this game are inextricably mixed with my high school experience.

My grade year in school was one of the first in my district to offer programming classes. Being a nerdy sort, I relished the opportunity to play on computers more than I already did, and on school time to boot. C++ was somewhat fun to learn, but the real fun came after all of the people in class had finished their assignments for the day. Our teacher, who was probably only a lesson or two ahead of us in programming in general, let us play Duke Nukem 3D once our work was complete.

Those frantic deathmatches in the last few minutes of class were incredible. Other than a LAN party, which I had scant access to, I would never have been able to get that many people playing one of my favorite games at the same time.

I even ended up making my own deathmatch levels with the included level editor. My favorite was a facing worlds-esque level with one entire huge wall of the arena being a giant mirror. The whole idea revolved around a rarely-used quirk of the game mechanics where if you got hit by the shrinker, using steroids would return you to normal size. Also, shrinker shots bounced off mirrors, so I tried to make fun use of that in my level.

I also recruited friends with computers to try using their dial-up modems to play a game of deathmatch. This was complicated by the fact that one friend didn’t quite grasp the concept of how the whole thing worked and kept answering the phone when the modem would dial his number, instead of letting the computer connect. This lead to us cackling in laughter and frustration every time we would hear our computer speakers outputting the confused “Hello? Hello” of our friend, who we eventually did get to fight in deathmatch one he figured out what was going on.

Ikaruga (DC) This game landed at the exact right time for me as a gamer. I was getting into shmups on the Dreamcast and there were so many great titles to choose from. Giga Wing, Mars Matrix, Under Defeat, I loved all of them. I heard about a Japanese game that people considered head and shoulders above the rest: Ikaruga.

Game magazines lauded its deceptively simple black and white bullet mechanics as well as its artistry and feel. I knew I had to have it, but it came at the exact wrong time for me financially as I was a broke college kid with barely enough money to scrape together for pizza. But I bought an import copy on eBay anyway for a then princely sum of $60.

I have never regretted it. This game is the zenith of shmups, both in style and substance. This is the high water mark and for me no shooting game has matched it since.

ToME 2.3.4 (PC) I’ve blathered on about roguelikes for quite a while, so I’ll be brief here. ToME was my first roguelike and the first one I ever won. I had tried Nethack before, but bounced off due to the huge amount of info you needed to know to be able to successfully play the game. ToME has quite a bit of info you need to know too, but it was several degrees more approachable than any others I had tried.

The power curve of your characters’ growth was fantastic. In the beginning by gaining levels, in the middle by acquiring items, in the late game by completing quests. The variety of enemies, stages, items and character options never got wholly boring for me. There was always the hope that that next quest would give you access to a skill far outside your normal playstyle and let you crack the game wide open. Or that you’d get some amazing new ring which would make the next 20 levels a walk in the park. So many good times.

Final Fight 3 (ZSNES) When I got big into emulation for the first time, it ended up biting me in the ass.

I had an NES growing up, but I missed out on the SNES era. So when emulators became widely available I went in heavy, rummaging through the library of games I had missed out on, but this time with savestates and fast-forwarding.

There had also been a wave of technology grants for schools at the time that allowed my high school and many others to have computers to help expose kids to technology. But the software and expertise to lock down those computers had yet to catch up, so I often ended up playing emulated SNES games in the computer lab during my study hour.

I played through all the big JRPGs, all the platform games, everything I was vaguely curious about I smuggled onto the network. But there was one series I kept coming back to: Final Fight. The first game was only a port of the arcade game but with fewer characters, the second was a SNES only sequel with barely any tweaks to the gameplay formula. But the third introduced sprinting, complex combo options, more weapons, hidden items and routes, new characters and Street Fighter-style special moves. There were enough fun additions to keep me playing and trying to master its many systems.

In my exuberance, I got carried away with my keyboard punching and was noticed by the vice principal while she passed by. A detention for me and new rules for the computer lab later, I had learned to keep my obsession with emulated SNES games better hidden. But regardless of all that, Final Fight 3 still holds up as probably the best beat ‘em up on the system.

Kirby's Dreamland (GB) I have a strange relationship with music in games. While so many other people make much of the quality or incongruity of the music accompanying the action in a game, I generally find music forgettable in most games I play. There are a few exceptions to this rule, like when music is a cornerstone of the game design as in Hotline Miami. The only other one I can think of is Kirby’s Dreamland for the Gameboy.

I played this game so much, the sheer repetition has ingrained the soundtrack into my mind. The crisp tones of the Gameboy were bent to a number of musical styles and the gameplay was cute and just difficult enough to be consistently fun. Some part of my brain is eternally in the back seat of a station wagon, letting the music and the comfy fun wash over me while I play.

Kingdom of Loathing (Internet) I don’t know where I stumbled upon it, maybe one of those early internet magazines or some odd gaming website I used to go to, but when I started playing Kingdom of Loathing (KoL) I fell in love right away.

KoL is nominally an online browser RPG where you have a certain number of turns each day to adventure, fight monsters, level up, etc. But every enemy, place and item you encounter is stuffed with jokes. Really dumb jokes, bad puns, esoteric references, song lyrics, all that jazz is packed into a surprisingly fun gameplay loop. Oh, and all the graphics are stick figures and the currency is meat.

I chose a Pastamancer as my first class and joined a clan called Pastamancers Unite! In clans you can share consumables, get tools to make more advanced items and go on special raids. Over the course of a year or so I donated a bunch of items, helped fellow clan members through the chat and ended up as the clan leader after the previous one left. I ran the clan for a while, but real life has a way of sweeping you along with it and I had to retire.

The clan is still going strong. My account is still there after all these years. The same group has released two rather hilarious RPGs on Steam, West of Loathing and Shadows Over Loathing, that are well regarded, also filled with tons of jokes and also feature stick figure graphics. I recommend you check all of them out, you have nothing to lose but free time.

Metal Storm (NES) When I was a kid, I was a ravenous reader of Nintendo Power. This was in the full glory of the NES era, where the magazine was one of the only sources besides store shelves to see and learn about new games coming out.

My parents, concerned about my grades no doubt, made a deal with me one year. If I made straight A’s, they would buy me one NES game of my choice. Now this was around 1990, games’ $50 asking price then is akin to more than $120 today. For our family, this was no small purchase. But at the time, I saw only an opportunity. I put in the extra effort, pulled off the ace and proudly presented my report card at the end of the year.

Nintendo Power had recently run a cover feature on Metal Storm, featuring its gravity-changing gameplay. I was going for this one from the start. I knew this was what I wanted. It was and remains a fantastic game with unique mechanics, great NES spritework and fun gameplay.

Daggerfall (PC DOS, Unity engine) For the time, this game was insane. It had miles and miles and miles of world to explore, which was mirrored by the grotesquely labyrinthine dungeons that also populated the wilderness. All in early 3D with creepy pixel monsters on top.

This started my love affair with the Elder Scrolls series because I spent hours upon hours making the most powerful warriors and mages imaginable with the flexible character creator. But the quests were hazy and occasionally impossibly difficult, even with cheats enabled. Even with the mark and recall spells, you might never find your way out of a dungeon if you went far enough in.

Most of the original game’s problems have been remedied by the remake of Daggerfall in the Unity engine, which has options to limit the size of the dungeons and fix the numerous bugs it originally shipped with. Also with mod support! Now you can see the countryside fly by as you fast travel, with vastly extended view distance. And since it’s been forever, the game is free on Bethesda’s website. Go check it out if you’re interested in where the series came from. DFUnity makes it a much better and more modern experience.

#20games

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Heatstroke checked the information on his phone one more time before he landed on the ground: a lone metahuman, hostile, no known accomplices, involved in a robbery. Several reports of injuries and property damage, but no fatalities. By all accounts it was the exact kind of situation he excelled at solving quickly and simply. He'd run in there, let his or his squad's reputation precede him, and then, if he was lucky, get to fight a little besides. The thought spread a smile across his brown face as he leapt through the air. The superhero gripped the high collar of his chestpiece with both gloved hands as the ground raced up towards him. Heatstroke grunted with the impact of his boots along the concrete, taking a few running steps to gather himself like a plane landing on the tarmac. He'd gotten more accurate with his massive leaps across town, but timing his solar powers to soften the landing was often more trouble than it solved. Instead he skidded across the asphalt, trying not to warm it beneath him with each step.

It wasn't hard to distinguish which building had been hit: the block had only one building whose facade looked like some giant beast had taken a bite out of its second floor. Debris littered the floor outside the building, and he considered whether to use the front door or enter via the hole that someone else had already made. The latter made more sense, and glass crunched beneath his laced boots as he looked around.

“Oh thank God!” Someone yelled as he stood there in the hole in the wall, illuminated by the midday Sun behind him. He loved the feeling of sunshine on his back and the promise of his energy stores refilling as he fought. Thank God for daytime missions. Heatstroke presented the picture of aggressive confidence as he scanned the room.

“Oh shit... is that Heatstroke?” another asked.

“Like... from Kinetic Solutions?”

“Ahhh shit...”

“You're safe. I'm here.” He quieted the crowd's chatter, his hands already glowing with his signature solar might. The facility's employees sat in small clusters, each guarded by a strange shadowy creature. From this distance, each bipedal guard looked like an undifferentiated mass of dark grey, like an opaque shadow. The creatures turned to face him the moment the civilians began yelling, and Heatstroke prepared for the fight he'd been waiting for.

The monsters—bipedal and clawed with strange, misshapen heads—leapt at him en masse. They made low, guttural noises, more beastly than human, and Heatstroke met their aggression in kind. He bobbed and swayed, moving his thickly muscled frame with agility and efficiency of a trained boxer. The first creature raked the air in front of him and then disappeared into a puff of smoke when he punched through what would have been its chest. The next leapt at him, and Heatstroke discovered they had tails when a third wrapped its appendage around his exposed knee. It pulled him off balance and the one sailing through the air sliced his cheek with a sharpened foot. Both puffed into smoke a moment later when he punched down into the one wrapped around his leg and caught the other in his white hot palm. He hurled the mysterious beast into another of its kind and then scanned the room for threats, calling out the hostages ringing the room.

“Everyone still alive? Did you see who did this or where they went?”

The clump of hostages nearest him waved him over, its members still looking around as if the monsters might emerge from the shadows again at any moment. A woman with bright brown eyes held half of a ripped shirt against a nasty looking cut, and a younger man explained that the woman responsible had burst through the wide building unannounced and unprovoked. She'd summoned a dozen of the monsters he'd fought before subduing the building's meager security and leaving most of the monsters to guard the hostages. Another employee interrupted to describe the woman, and the one who'd spoken before nodded along.

“Big purple hat, purple clothes, and glowing eyes.” They all agreed about her eyes. They bickered loudly about her stature and complexion and exactly what she'd told them. Heatstroke let them talk, already signaling for a paramedic.

“Ok, great. Aside from shadow monsters, what did she do?” He asked. The sunlight bounced off his gear: boots reminiscent of hard armor plates affixed to boxing boots, a thick belt around his flared shorts that left room for his thick calves to see the sun, an armored breastplate that stopped just below his ribs and just before his shoulders but featured a high collar that nearly covered his chin, and armored gloves that stopped at his knuckles as to not hamper the sunlight that gathered in his fingertips. He'd consulted with a few designers and manufacturers on how to maximize protection without impeding his brawling, kickboxing fighting style or covering too much of the bare brown skin that turned sunlight into superhuman abilities.

He'd picked the colors—a deep red and pure white with vivid yellow details—to further emphasize his solar powers and draw attention. And also because he thought the entire thing looked badass when put together.

The initial report, the one he'd responded to when he accepted this job, didn't identify her as any known meta, hero, villain, or otherwise. That was rare but not unheard of, but he wanted some foresight about who he was about to apprehend and if or how they might resist. Even boxers studied tape of their opponents to prepare for a match.

The chatter grew louder as the worried victims each tried to speak over each other. The brawny hero heard no fewer than a dozen terrified and conflicting accounts of what this woman had done or said and what she was capable of. the only thing that they agreed about was that she'd headed upstairs, into the R&D department. A vicious rumbling interrupted his investigation and sent the room into violent cacophany as people huddled on the ground. Screaming and wailing, the tall, atheltic hero quickly decided that he had no better option than to investigate on his own. It was no secret that the Kinetic Solutions—the superhero team he led— were recommended for the jobs likely too violent for other teams. Nails in need of a team of hammers. He checked his armor—red and white with yellow accents in a clear artistic interpretation of the Sun that powered him— and jogged toward the stairs.

What's her hazard rating right now? He wondered, checking his phone. The Hazard system, long used as a rough guide, informed what level of response he could reasonably justify. A villain who hadn't murdered anyone shouldn't expect lethal force, and neither hero nor villain could claim they “feared for their lives” without serious extenuating circumstances. This woman's No one needed to die today

Shattered glass and twisted metal decorated the stairs. Heatstroke wondered if the damp, unpleasant smell of the stairwell predated this attack or not. He leapt up the center of the stairs, zooming out of his stories high arc and over the railing when he heard the familiar buzz of damaged electronics.

The door presented only token resistance when he pulled it off its hinges and stepped onto the R&D floor of the Meritron Inc building. Smoke poured from ruined devices lining the walls, engineering and science equipment he'd only seen in machine shops and labs. Whoever had been working here had been busy with something. The far side of the room was too obscured by smoke to see clearly, but the high ceilings, thick concrete walls, and sturdy floors of this level made clear that Meritron intended on keeping whatever work was done here close at hand. Heatstroke's brown eyes glowed with the same yellow white light that wound around his dark brown skin in ever changing patterns.

The blue-grey haze 20 feet in front of him was smoke. Natural. Carbon based. The product of burning plastic and silicon. But the smoke pooling behind it?

Magic.

Blocking his vision, denying the illumination pouring off of him. His hands glowed and Heatstroke braced himself, bobbing and shifting in his stance to present a moving target. He threw a single bolt of solar energy into the smoke, angling it towards the floor to hopefully avoid any further damage. It burst against the tile and spread a harsh glow that illuminated her silhouette in the smoke

“If you're in there, this is your chance to come out, hands up, and keep this simple.” He said.

A door opened in the deep grey smoke, like curtains parting. And then she appeared. He saw her eyes first: her irises were yellow discs sent against the deep black abyss of her pupils and sclera. The effect was chilling, inhuman. She stared at him behind thick, golden framed glasses, and a curious smile spread across her dark brown face. Her cheeks were soft and round, as was the rest of her. Her visage clarified as he approached her. She was small, with a deep purple dress inlaid with gold glyphs that stretched over her generous curves. He looked over her quickly, noting the purple fog blanketing the floor around her. The purple hat and cape gave her the distinct image of a sorcerer or a witch, but her heavy gloves and boots suggested someone much more accustomed to hand to hand combat.

She stared at him, hard, for a long while before saying anything. He figured she was sizing him up the same as he was her. “You first responder heroes are never any fun.” she said, resting her chin in her palm and folding that arm over the other. “Go call for backup and tell them to bring me a challenge.” She dropped something from her hand and it disappeared into the split cloak waving behind and below her without a sound. Then she dismissed him with a wave and turned around, returning to whatever she'd been doing when he'd arrived.

Heatstroke gritted his teeth but kept his emotions in check. He'd done this for too many years for such a simple barb to get under his skin.

“Joke's on you, witch; when I'm the first responder, I'm the only response they need.” He knew exactly how 'witch' sounded and relished the wide eyed rage that flashed across her admittedly pretty brown face. Even with her long purple and black braids partially blocking her face, there was beauty there. Only those inhuman eyes ruined the effect. A reminder that she wasn’t just a pretty thicc woman in a revealing dress.

“Oh?” The tendrils of smoke beneath the woman tightened and coalesced as she turned to face him again, and he noticed now that she was floating. Likely mere centimeters above the ground, but the visual of her bobbing up and down made it clear that she wasn't standing on solid ground. She unfolded and crossed her arms and regarded him with what looked like intrigue. “Tell me more, hero.” He noticed her fingers waggling but ignored it.

Now it was Heatstroke's turn to regard someone with intrigue and interest. “You're new in town, huh? Pretty sure they have wifi in the jails now. When you get there, look up “Kinetic Solutions. Last I heard I was the man in this city. Ask about me. As a matter of fact...”

He lost himself in his own introduction. Who wouldn't? He'd led the city's— no, the state's— most dangerous superhero team for almost 3 years. He was tall, dark, handsome, and as skilled at tactics as he was as scrapping. He was squad leader for a reason. His solar powers made him sturdy, dangerous, mobile, and let him be as aggressive as he wanted. He didn't even have them on yet. His bands weren't even glowing right now. And-

And then she was flying toward him, knees first, yelling what sounded distinctly like “Malus Meteora.”

He felt her shins on his shoulders, and braced, and then felt something around his ankle. Hands. Cold shadowy hands. And then he toppled over onto his back and got a much clearer view of the witch rampaging through Meritron's R&D facility. She sat on his hard chestplate, her full body weight on top of him. She was heavier than she looked. Solid. And surprisingly muscular beneath the soft squish of her thighs. Her dark brown skin contrasted with the rich purple and gold of her skimpy robes. The slit on each side put her wide, curvy hips on full display. From this angle, trapped beneath her, he couldn't see her face, not with her massive chest obscuring her view. Each breast looked like it might be just a little larger than her head. But when she leaned forward. It was her eyes that caught him and held his attention. Her irises glowed, golden halos set against the night sky of her jet black sclera. A demon's gaze, nearly hidden by her curtain of black and purple twists spilling out of her witch hat.

This was dangerous. She'd pinned him immediately, gotten the drop on him while he'd gotten lost bragging about himself. She was almost certainly going to try and incapacitate him here. The thought of a genuine brawl excited him like little else could, and Heatstroke watched her expression curdle as she looked down on him.

“Glad to know heroes here love the sound of their own voices as much as they do everywhere else. Sorry to cut this short, hero, but I'm in a time crunch. Any last words before I turn you into an unpleasant memory?” She stretched out her arm above him, fingers curling to contain a rapidly growing black hole that churned and seethed in her palm, a miasma of energy from an unknown source. He didn't have to understand its origin or mechanism to know that he wouldn't enjoy her shoving it into his face. She caressed his jaw with her other hand. “It is a pity though. You're cute, in a 'big dumb idiot' kind of way. I would have had a lot of fun playing with you until you broke like a cheap toy.”

“Just one.” He said. Her eyes narrowed at him. “Mind if I turn my powers on?”

Heatstroke didn't give her a chance to respond. Instead, the burst of light and heat flung her away from him, directly up into the air. The two shadow servants disappeared in the flash while he rolled away and onto his feet, body now coursing with his sunlit powers. The white gold bands of light pulsed and shifted across his skin in changing patterns, a human light show.

“Sorry.” He said, cracking his knuckles. “That was rude as fuck, but goddam is that shit funny. “'Some hero you are.' 'Man you're weak.' Yada yada.” he laughed in a mocking tone. “Then I turn the lights on and they start running like roaches.”

In front of him, the curvy, dark skinned witch had righted herself, smoothing out her dress and already mumbling a spell. She didn't have any words for him this time, and Heatstroke fell into his familiar stance, looking to close the distance and bring his sunlight charged fists to bear. Or a knee, maybe a spinning elbow. He wasn't especially picky about how he hit her, or even if he made direct contact. Light and heat poured off his limbs in sufficient amount to turn near misses into painful reminders for opponents to keep their distance from the Sun. To his surprise though, she didn't flee. Most spellcasters preferred to keep their distance to give them more time to react with the proper incantation. This one bent forward in a half-crouch, hands spread out wide like a...

Like a wrestler?

There was a first time for everything. They met in the center of the room when she ducked his wide, arcing punch to launch herself at his waist. He felt her arms wrap around him, soft and smooth until the muscles beneath tensed as the diminutive witch hauled him off his feet and onto her shoulders. She capsized, falling to her side to drive him headfirst into the cold tile of the research lab. They fell much further than he expected, than they should have, until Heatstroke saw the now disintegrating puff of obsidian colored magic that must have catapulted them both into the air. The impact sent an ugly thud resounding through the drafty room and rattled him. Then two shadow beasts he hadn't seen darkened his vision and stomped him like they were trying to squash a roach. He drew his arms up to cover his face but otherwise ignored them. The witch kneeling near him was the bigger issue. The eerie purple glow emanating from her body and especially her hands hurt just from touching him, and he recognized the danger immediately. Whatever spell pulsed around her seemed concentrated around her body. No wonder she wanted to wrestle. It ate at him, sapped him, even as her massive chest squished against his bare abs.

“What's wrong, hero? You don't look so hot.” She said, already trying to roll him over onto his stomach. Heatstroke braced himself and fought free, she lunged at him again, and this time he caught her with a sharp punch that stunned her long enough for him to back away and shake off the lingering traces of her spell.

They both caught their breath, and he strafed and circled as she walked straight towards him, brimming with menace and confidence. She could summon seemingly endless amounts of those shadow beasts on a whim, and the purple smoke that trailed her and her ominous purple energy crackling around her both seemed to eat at his vitality. It looked bad, no matter how he considered it?

Did he need to call for backup? At least one of the other five members of Kinetic Solutions was likely available if he needed it.

But pride might be harder to defeat than this woman was. He didn't need anyone. Not for a one-on-one against a spellcaster who didn't even know his powers. Instead he considered tactics and possibilities. What hadn't he tried yet? Ideas raced through his head as he parried her advances, throwing small bursts of sunlight at the horde of shadows that stepped forward from the edge of the room. She taunted him but that could wait. A vaguely hand-shaped spark of energy raced out toward him and Heatstroke made up his mind. The latest spell raced past him as he ducked beneath it, surging toward the caster as he delivered his first solid punches of their fight. The third blow erupted in a pulse of sunlight that sent the woman skidding along the cold floor of the R&D lab until one of the shadow creatures caught her and turned her upright. She might be as sturdy as she was haughty, but he bet that this small, voluptuous woman couldn't absorb many of the strikes that had sent larger villains flying and stopped armored vehicles in their tracks.

“You have a name?” He asked. “Or a callsign at least?”

“You can call me... Demise.” She said after taking a moment to wipe her face and adjust her glasses.

“Of course I can.” He shook his head. “Edgiest shit ever.”

“Heatstroke doesn't sound very heroic.” She said, circling him again.

“Anything's heroic if you're putting villains away and saving the day.” He swore that disdain flashed across her face as he finished the rhyme.

They circled like two predators fighting for territory, feinting and lunging, firing off bolts and rays of energy in an attempt to force one reaction or another. He caught her as she overextended, tagging her with a jab and a glowing kick before looping his hand behind her head and pulling her close to him. Her short stature and compromised posture pressed her chest against him, her massive chest squishing against his chiseled abs. He caught the shock in her cold black and yellow eyes as he drove his knee into her soft middle and tried to rearrange her face with a blistering right hook that sent a crescent of yellow white light through her and briefly dissipated her smoke cloud..

“You're almost too pretty to hit, nahmean? If you weren't robbing the place I'd be asking for your number.” He admitted, preparing to hit her again.

“If I fuck you, will you let me get off with a warning?” She asked, with a vulnerability he'd never heard from her. It gave him pause. Rumors, some confirmed, of heroes and villains working out extralegal agreements to conclude their hostile engagements persisted, but Heatstroke had never offered. He'd been solicited once, by a villain who'd clearly heard of the practice and thought it might work for them. Heatstroke had impolitely declined before putting them down for the count.

“I-I'm not like that. I didn't show up to fuck you.” He stammered, giving her the moment she needed to turn the tables on him.

“Pity.” She cackled, sliding out of his grip and behind him. “You're pretty hot, and you're good with your hands. I wouldn't mind seeing how good exactly.” Her warm breath tickled his ear and sent a twitch of distraction through him. Magic? He couldn't tell. She wrapped her arms around his waist and pressed her body into his back, smashing her hips into his, her generous chest into his. “If you change your mind, I might just see if you can let me off easy. Or get me off easy.” The implications were as explicit on her long, wet tongue dragging across his hot back. The sensation didn't last long though, not when he felt her pillowy legs wrapped around his neck.She nearly sat on his shoulders, legs tangled around his neck. She fell backwards, trying to use the momentum to drag him backwards off his feet and onto the ground, headfirst, but a mighty effort from his glowing frame kept him upright. The shadow slammed into his calf and sent him toppling. Heatstroke saw the wan fluorescent lights of the laboratory come into view and then disappear as Demise slammed the top of his head into the floor.

The tile cracked with the impact, and Demise maintained her grip. The soft squish of her legs gave way to taught cords of muscle threatening to cut off his blood circulation. She sat on his back and reclined, straining with the effort of grapevining her legs around his thickly muscled neck. Her thighs rubbed against his goatee, and he fought desperately to unwind her limbs. When he made a little progress, she swore aloud and then changed tack. He felt Demise pitch forward, her chest pressed against him. She looped a leg under either of his and slipped her arms under his chin. He didn't recognize the hold until she pulled back, straining his bare abs. Heat fought this hold like the other, and they grunted into strained silence. He looked back at the too-handsy witch and plotted his escape. She cracked an unwelcome smile.

When he looked ahead again there was a shadow beat running at him. He didn't recognize the summoned shadow's intent until it reared back and kicked him square in the face like a soccer player taking a penalty kick. The creatures might not pose a threat to him when he could strike back, but undefended, their blows hurt like any other. Thankfully, the impact was sufficient for the brawny hero to rock backwards and then forward out of Demise's grasp. She didn't pursue him, instead she rested her head in her palm and watched him scramble up onto shaky legs.

“I'm gonna devour you. You realize that yet? You're doomed. Fucked. I'm gonna be your, and this city's-”

“Don't you fucking dare.” He roared, too late to stop her.

”-Demise.” She finished, laughter creasing her dark brown face. “I'm glad you're a sun hero. You're cooked. Well done, in fact. But if you get on your knees and put your face between my thighs, I might let you live. You'll make a delicious pet.”

Something about her taunts was strangely reassuring. A villain who deigned to banter was a villain engaged with the task at hand. She was focused on him. This wasn't easy for her. Now he had to unravel her strategy and put her on the defensive. Ideas already ran through his head as he assessed their fight so far.

“I thought I told you that when I'm the first responder, the city doesn't need a second. I'm having fun with you. This is a great workout. But I'm a big guy: if you want me on my knees, do it yourself, witch.”

The same insult, the same twitch of rage. He'd struck a nerve with that one. He'd have to remember to use that again later. She'd hurt him each time she'd caught him off guard, and he'd need to be more diligent about staying focused on her. Her style was similar to Gamma Crush, his radiation powered teammate, though Gamma's grappling was less technical, less precise. And he dealt with magic on a regular basis courtesy of training with the Emissary, the mage whose pact with an incubus had turned him into a very petite, very unassuming magical hazard. His teammates had prepared him for this. Heatstroke could do this, no matter how heavy his legs felt or how much his head throbbed.

He took the advantage this time, leaping into the cavernous room and then using a burst of solar power to change his direction in midair. He shot downwards like a missile and caught her dead in the face, then knocked the reeling woman off her feet with a charged sun ray.

“I'm Heatstroke, and I don't lose fights.” he promised her, pounded his gloved fist on his cracked armor.

Their battle soon settled into a clear dynamic: they both wanted physical contact on their own terms. She wanted to lift him, slam him, strangle him with those big soft legs of hers. He wanted to turn her into a very pretty punching bag, or target practice for rays of solar energy projected from his fists. His brawn made him difficult to keep down, and his control of his powers gave him the kind of mobility most opponents didn't expect from a man of his size and strength. On the other hand, he couldn't tell exactly what spell or wrestling hold she'd attempt next, and the element of surprise made her dangerous. Her shadows threatened to tip the balance on more than one occasion, and he grew accustomed to evaporating them via bolts of sunlight hurled in their direction each time he had a second to spare. He'd guessed that they were more expensive for Demise to create and maintain than they were for him to destroy, and doing so had the added effect of hampering some of her most vicious spells and techniques. He'd also guessed that direct sunlight would be particularly effective at dissipating summoned shadows.

He still had questions about this mysterious woman, (none the least of which was how her glasses hadn't broken after being punched in the face repeatedly) but all those could be settled after she'd been apprehended.

“You know,” she asked as Heat absorbed a glancing blow from a jumping spinning kick he'd only seen on wrestling shows, “you might think about offering that whole 'sex for freedom' option. You're hot, and I get the feeling you're more of a lover, not a fighter.”

The brawny hero responded with a kick of his own. The blow missed but the arc of light it produced knocked her off balance enough to launch her into the air with a solar uppercut and guarantee her a hard landing with another strike as she fell back towards the floor. Each titanic blow sent waves of blinding light and blistering heat through the distressed building. So much for the typical financial incentive for reducing collateral damage. Demise hit the ground hard enough to bounce against the tile, finally landing face up and eyes closed. She didn't move further, splayed out on the cracked tiles and visible concrete. Heatstroke allowed himself a deep breath as he stood over her. Her sumptuous curves were distracting to say the least. Her soft, chubby waist terminated in hips and thighs each thicker than his impressive biceps. They jiggled softly as her chest rose and fell, but not as visibly as her massive chest. Each labored breath lifted breasts each larger than her head, and she murmured softly, apparently unconscious. With her demonic eyes closed it was easy to admire her face. Rich dark brown skin, large lips that demanded he investigate if they were as soft as they looked, and round cheeks that made her look younger, cuter, than anything else about her did. He guessed she was in her thirties, but considering her magical talents, she might be a hundred years old, concealed by a glamor spell.

“You're cute when you're asleep.” He admitted, but 'cute' was an understatement. She was as gorgeous as she was hazardous, as alluring as she was lethal. He wanted her. Not enough to take her while she was unconscious, but he knew they hadn't seen the last of each other. The surge of desire passed, and he pulled restraints from the pouches on his waist. He knelt by the vicious witch and paused. There was movement on the edge of his vision.

He noticed her fingers wiggling a new spell and mouth murmuring a new incantation a moment before three summoned shadows barrelled into him, knocking him headlong onto the floor. He shook off dust and sat up just in time for the decidedly not-unconscious to collide with him knees first: her shins caught his broad shoulders before her crotch collided flush with his face. They rolled in a heap before she sat on his waist, and Heatstroke cursed his complacency. He should have pummeled her till he was certain she wouldn't be an issue any time soon. The swelling on her eye didn't conceal those unsettling jet black eyes, their yellow irises only serving to make her more scary, not less. He prepared to rely on his grappling training to escape, before she ran her fingers along his chest.

“Awwwww, did the big, scary, hero fall down? That's twice I've hit you with 'Malus Meteora,' Heatstroke; maybe we're both getting used to me pressing my kitty against your face. If you wanted to taste real villainy, you should have asked earlier, champ.”

“God, you talk too much.” Heatstroke said, squirming under her. She was heavier than her short stature suggested, and he wondered if this was also a spell. From her he could just make out the brim of her hat past her prominent bust. The bottom, the inside of the hat's brim swirled with stars and galaxies set against a black sky. It took him a moment to realize that the sky wasn't merely a pattern sewn onto the hat; the sky and stars were moving in her hat, like a window of a night sky. He caught a single shooting star before it disappeared past her breasts and out of view. “Normally that's my job.”

They fought for position, rolling over once and then again, before she eked out a short advantage and pressed her body flat against his. Her chest squished against his cracked chest armor as she fought to pin his broad hands above his head. When she couldn't capture his hands or wrists for more than a moment he watched her lower her head until...

Until their lips met. He didn't expect the kiss, though he immediately discovered that her dark, plump lips were exactly as soft as they looked. Her tongue wiggled past his lips and delivered a taste of villainy he hadn't expected. It was faintly sweet like her breath, with a taste he struggled to place. He wanted her. Needed her. He wanted to taste her, he wanted to touch her, he wanted to fill her. Her grinding on his waist made him uncomfortably aroused and he had grief visions of fucking her in various positions and locales. From behind, the witch bent over a desk. On a bed, the witch on her back, single thigh lifted up to rest on his chest while she made soft, vulnerable moans.

“Ohhh?” Her taunt roused him from his lewd dream. “I wasn't sure that spell would work, but that's not a torch in your pants is it, Heatstroke? Feels like you're more than a little curious about what's under my dress. Be a good boy and I might reward you.”

Heatstroke realized that this was bad. Critically so. Here he was thinking about her mouth while she was trying to put him in the hospital or the morgue en route to making a clean getaway with unknown technology. She might be fine as [i]fuck[i/] but Heatstroke had a [i]fucking[/i] job to do and [i]fucking[/i] wasn't part of it.

He made one last effort and dislodged her with considerable effort.

“An infatuation spell? That hardly seems fair.” He groaned, pushing up to his hands and knees.

“I'm a villain, asshole. Did you expect me to play fair? If you wanna play pattycake, go find some dopey hero. I'm Demise, and Witch Way runs your city now, loser. Tell your little loser ass friends too.”

“Witch way?” He coughed, quickly connecting that Witch Way was likely the name of her group. Her coven? “Run the city? Y'all not even jogging. I've never heard of you.” He stood again, ailing and aching. “But come down to the station with me and I'll make sure we get your squad registered before you do some time in jail, nahmean?”

She rushed at him now, and Heatstroke expected more wrestling from the grappler witch until he noticed the black orb in her open palm, churning and swirling like liquid night.

“Here's your answer!” Demise screamed, and Heatstroke swore as he considered his options. She was too close, moving too fast. He couldn't dodge in time. He was too weak, still recovering from whatever her kiss had done to him. He didn't want to match power against power, especially with only a split second to charge. Instead a surge of churning light swaddled on muscled arm and he deflected her hand as best he could away from his head and heart. He'd live with the consequences.

Probably.

Demise's latest spell hurled them across the room in different directions and Heatstroke lost his bearings before he finally tumbled to a stop. He felt nothing and considered for a moment that he might in fact be dead. Maybe he hadn't survived whatever dark orb she thrust into his chest after all. He felt briefly furious at the idea of dying here, to her, on a job like this. It was insulting.

Then the pain found him and he briefly wished he had died. His body felt like a punctured water bottle, leaking fluid from a new and unwelcome orifice. Whatever she'd done to him was trying to sap him or his solar energy. It was draining him. He wanted to vomit. He wanted to sleep. He wanted to cough. But more than anything, he wanted to win. The pain finally subsided enough for him to stop writhing and stand, stance and armor both severely compromised. He touched his armor, chest and legs both, and found numerous holes in each. His ablative armor had done its job. He bled, but between him and his chestpiece, only the armor had been pierced. The cracked and fraying edges of it threatened to cut the fingers he ran along it, and when he instinctively grabbed his high front collar, the entire thing gave way. The red and white sleeveless crop top armor crumbled in his hands and fell onto the cement floor, looking very much like a shattered porcelain urn.

He swore as he felt the cold air on his bare, brown skin. He flexed, wincing each time his body alerted him to a new tweak, bruise, or strain. At least nothing felt broken. Across the room, Demise didn't look much better than he felt. Her already revealing robe had further tattered and threatened to reveal her deep cleavage and whether she had a thigh gap or not. She wobbled slightly, punchdrunk and winded, while Heatstroke checked his arms. His sun bands had cooled to dull yellow and pulsed in sluggish, lazy waves across his brown muscle. He needed to finish this now. The audience of shadow servants that had originally ringed their fight was now much thinner, and the ones that remained fuzzed and blurred like TV static. She was running on fumes like he was.

She waved him in, steadying herself as he approached. His fists felt heavy and he felt slow, but he had one attack he hadn't tried yet. Heatstroke ducked low and surged forward, coming out of his crouch to wrap his arm around her again. He could feel her tense up, which made it all the more satisfying when he kissed her instead.His hands slid down the curve of her voluptuous frame and he allowed himself a little indulgence as he tasted her, nibbling on her lip, feeling the odd coolness of her soft, doughy waist and the sheer size and impressive shape of her hips. Her tattered dress offered no resistance as his fingers found a purchase on her hip, his broad hand grabbing the sensual crease where the curve of her ass met the curve of her thigh. He felt her gasp, felt the heat in his hands warming her. She resisted, but only at first. The next sound she made was a swooning, purring, moan. As satisfied as a cat napping, basking in the sunlight warming the window sill.

“Ready to give up yet?” He asked between slow kisses.

Her heavy bust pressed into his and he felt just how far her massive breasts could squish, freeing on hand to roam upwards along her dark brown frame. The rest of her was human. So delightfully human. He caressed her neck as they embraced, fighting to keep his own composure as her hands explored his muscles. From his broad shoulders to his chest, chiseled and bare, to the muscular ridges of his waist. She wanted all of him.

Her answer came slowly. An unintelligible but distinctly negative response. He'd expected that after all. Heatstroke nibbled on her neck again and whispered into her ear. “Then you know what comes next.”

“Your demise.” She muttered, eyes glowing once again.

They broke their kiss with a frenzy of action. She deflected his first blow but he caught her cleanly with two lighter punches that knocked her head backwards. She grabbed him, first his torso, then his thigh, and almost tripped him to the ground before disengaging. She turned to leave, but not before he caught hold of her short, high split cape. The same one she'd dropped a peculiar looking device into. It held the same night sky pattern as the underside of her hat, he noticed.

“Ughhhhh you're being unpleasant, Heatstroke! We had our fun, now it's time to go our separate ways.” She said with apparent exhaustion.

“We're not done quite yet, Demise.” He reminded her, still tugging on her cape. The fabric stretched then tore with a loud noise and a puff of magic. Demise kept her footing and spun away from him towards the darkened back wall. Heatstroke took a deep breath and leapt over her, landing within arm's reach. He needed to finish this soon or not at all. He was spent and he knew it.

The supervillain turned and ran in the other direction, towards the set of stairs he'd used. He dashed, sunlight in his steps as he curved around her and ended up back in her way. But the hero realized too late that this latest movement had been a feint, meant to distract him from her preferred path. She was running back towards the back wall after all. The one cloaked in shadow that she'd been standing near when he'd arrived. Now a throng of fading, buzzy shadows leapt into his path now, obstructing his vision. He vaporized them all with a glowing left hook that sent a sputtering wave of light into the air and sought out their creator.

And there she stood. Hands on her knees, panting, gasping. Her curves were more noticeable than usual. She held up a finger in a plea for time to catch her breath. Heatstroke couldn't, wouldn't oblige. They weren't having [i]that[i/] much fun, no matter how attractive she was. He expected a quip from her. He did not expect her to look into his glowing eyes and meow. Not the mimicked sound a human might make, but a full throated, authentic cat noise. He stared at her, and then Demise wasn't Demise anymore.

He was holding a large black cat. Other than the feline he was now alone in a room bereft of shadows or villains. He stood there, holding a cat in one hand and a length of tattered purple fabric in the other, and scanned the room.

He caught only a glimpse of her, but that was enough to see Demise—the real, human one—take a final step and leap through the wall in front of her, which rippled and shimmered like the surface of an ebon pool as she phased through it. He dropped the cat and chased after her, arriving at the same wall she'd used and quickly recognizing that the intense darkness on this side of the room had been the result of a witch’s spell rather than mundane darkness. She’d worked magecraft to black, shadowy plate to cover the gaping hole in the building wall she’d made sometime previously. He punched through it with his light, but staring down into the busy street below he could find no trace of the woman.

Demise had escaped.

He spun around and her cat too, was gone. He yelled with frustration and pounded the wall with his fist before deactivating his powers and slumping to the ground. All he had of her was her taste and the cape in his hands, tattered and torn. He looked at it and sighed. It would have to do.

“So Demise, huh? This city just got a lot more interesting...” “So what happened at Meritron?” 10-Count asked over breakfast the next morning. The Kinetic Solutions headquarters was modest, but well equipped to house its team of 6 superheroes and a small contingent of staff dedicated to the team’s success.

This morning the two superheroes sat in the chow hall in relative silence, save a TV playing the latest news. Jessica Nguyen, known to the world as '10-Count,' was an aggressive, determined superhero, enough so to stand out on a team full of them. She wasn’t the oldest or most experienced or the most socially adept, but the woman recognized a weakness when she saw one and knew how to exploit it.

Heatstroke looked up from his hot cereal. “C'mon Jess. Not now.”

Jessica looked away, and then the solar powered brawler returned to his meal.

“So Cal, what happened at Meritron yesterday?” Heatstroke heard her clearer this time for everything she said nonverbally: the way she used his government name, the curt tone in her voice, and the way she now specified the location and date. He might be the group's field leader, but 10-Count was the enforcer on a team full of superpowered enforcers. Heatstroke outranked her, and could make her drop it, but pulling rank over a debrief would be more trouble than it was worth. Instead, the bruised and weary solar powered hero acquiesced. He could give a little now and get a little more back from her later.

The dull ache in his skull and back had ruined enough of his sleep that he didn't feel like fighting her over this. Come to think of it, the dull aches plaguing him were likely what she wanted to talk about. The shredded cape he'd pulled off of Demise sat in a tattered heap next to him on the cafeteria table. He doubted 10-Count recognized it as such.

“Sure,” he said, reaching past the strap of his white tank top undershirt to rub his traps and shoulder. “She was there when I got on the scene. Took care of her magical... shadows or whatever and called in a medevac for the civilians. She didn't care, didn't try to use the employees as hostages. You'd think she tied 'em up and forgot about 'em.”

Calvin saw curiosity bloom in her brown eyes, partially hidden as they were by her short, wavy hair.

“So what was she there for?”

“Fuck if I know. You know Meritron ain't saying shit either. But I caught her pulling some shit out of a container in their third floor lab.”

Jessica motioned for him to keep talking.

“She dropped it into her cape.”

“Like, her pocket? Gamma Crush said you brought her cape back with you.”

“Nah. Not quite.” Calvin gestured at the witch's cape. “You see any pockets on that thing?” He failed to conceal his frustration or fatigue. “When she was wearing it the inside looked different. It glowed. Had stars on it like a night sky.”

The short, athletic woman stared at him, uncomprehending. “So what. Magic?”

“I mean, she had no shortage of spells for me. But once I ripped it off of her-”

“The spell dissipated?”

They shrugged at each other. That was as far as deduction could take them.

“Yeah, basically. I wanna ask Em about it. Where is he?”

Jessica's scrunched up face and exaggerated shrug was all the answer Calvin needed.

Emile Collet, better known as the Emissary, served as the Kinetic Solution's only current magical expert. The man was an antisocial jackass even by their loosened standards, but Calvin couldn't deny that the caustic little jackass was their best bet at determining what the hell had happened to the cape.

“So the job went sideways and lil' miss witchy-poo gave you the business.” Jessica was teasing him now and he knew it. “Bet you wish you called for backup now, huh Cal?”

Hand-to-hand combat excellence was a prerequisite for Kinetic Solution membership, but 10-Count surpassed even that. She might not have the other skills necessary to be team leader yet, but being the best fighter on the team was a constant debate and a point of pride for all six of their team's current members.

Calvin swore at her first. Then he explained what Demise had done, or tried to. She and her ‘Witch Way’ coven represented new forces acting on the already delicate balance of superhumans in the city and beyond. A new team capable of going toe to toe with the Kinetic Solutions threatened everything they'd built, including their reputation as the city's foremost fighters. He omitted, however, any mention of Demise's physique or the way she'd groped, kissed, taunted him. He wanted her he realized, or at least he had during their brief encounter. He'd more than wanted her. He'd needed her. Their last kiss had been one he'd initiated, and he couldn't lie to even himself that he'd done so solely to recover what she'd stolen. He'd kissed her to keep her from leaving.

But 10-Count didn't think that way about anyone, and mentioning his brief infatuation with the voluptuous witch would only make her doubt his judgement. As far as Jessica needed to know, Demise was just a wrestler with magical powers who’d squabbled with him before escaping. He snapped at her, fully aware of his exhaustion now.

“But anyways... a wrestler witch, huh?” The lithe Vietnamese woman took a moment to consider the possibility. “So like, a battle mage, combat witch kind of vibe. Like a magus or a warlock I guess. But I've never heard of one fighting barehanded.”

“First time for everything.” He said.

10-Count nodded. “Gotta love it. That's the superhuman world for you. If she's as sturdy as you say she is, I can't wait to get my hands on her.”

“Be careful. I hit her with the same punch that put Mac Mortar down. But she got up. I don't know if it's a dark magic vs Sun power thing or what, but you can bet I'm gonna find the fuck out.”

“Someone's touchy. You want your lick back, don't you?” Jessica shot him a devious smile.

Calvin nodded. “Damn right. I owe that witch some bruises.”

---

#Writing #FirstDraft #Series #SFW #HotDarkLoveStory #HDLS #Fiction #Romance #Action #Fight #Magic #Superheroes #MartialArts

Early November, That Year

---

Tensions are high at a gym near Los Angeles, California. Women from the gym and beyond are gathered in the MMA cage looking to make new friends and hash out their differences. In particular, all except for one of them attend the same college nearby. Mary, a hardnosed boxer has just challenged Jamila, one of the visitors and a Brazilian Jiu Jitsu specialist, to a sparring round. Who wins in the classic boxer vs submission grappler matchup?

---

Mary vs Jamila

---

Theresa leaned close to her chemistry labmate to listen to Simone as they watched Jamila and Mary trade blows in the middle of the cage. Mary had a height and reach advantage over the curvy grappler, but the few shots Jamila threw landed. All the advice Simone gave her friend seemed to ask her to do more: move around more, throw more jabs, move her head more, attack more. More, more, more.

By contrast, Mary's friends seemed content to cheer her on. All they wanted was more of the same.

Theresa watched Mary back Jamila down and then dig another left hook beneath her arms and into her side, eliciting a grunt. Even a novice like Theresa could see that it was always Mary advancing and Jamila scooting straight back or to the side, out of Mary’s way. The Latina college senior looked indomitable, unstoppable. Theresa wondered if she’d seemed that way to Jennifer when they'd fought earlier that school year.

“Work that kick, Jazz! Work the angles! She’s got nothing but straight lines!” Simone called out from her seat in the corner of the MMA cage. Jamila took that one to heart and promptly took a half step around Theresa’s coach and uncorked a kick into Mary’s side. The stout Filipina slugger recognized it as the same kick Simone had taught her 15 minutes earlier.

It took a few more iterations for Mary to figure out the position and timing and then feed Jamila a sharp right the next time she tried the kick. Jam wobbled for a moment as she backed away. Theresa wondered what she was thinking…

Fuck that noise

The words blared out in Jamila’s head as she backed away. She’d boxed with this girl, traded leather and tried everything Simone had called out. But she felt that last punch through her mouthguard and decided that stand up striking was not a long term viable strategy. Not with this monster.

“Awww, pobrecita! I think you just realized what stepping in the cage with me means, meatball. Not so fun anymore, is it?” Mary taunted as Jamila circled warily. “I’m not like Rebecca or Kelsey; I don't play games; I just hurt people. Well come on, let's see if you even last the whole round. I wanna see if you're as soft as you look!”

Mary dashed toward her with a speed belied by her impressive muscles and fired a heavy punch at the stout grappler. Jamila absorbed it on her arm, mostly, and immediately sought to wrap up the burly boxer. “Aww, what happened to all that fire? Am I too rough for you?” Mary jeered.

“Just keep watching.” Jamila assured her.

Rebecca was strong; that much was certain, but the blonde had also been a willing grappler. She and Jamila clinched almost immediately, each certain they had the advantage. By contrast, Mary seemed to enlist every muscle in her body to detach her body from Jamila’s grasp. She shook herself free and sought to renew her punishing assault but a second effort from Jamila finally brought the fight to the floor.

“So you’re just like those two sluts..” the Latina brawler spat, clearly referring to Rebecca and Kelsey. “So much for you being a warrior.”

“Nothing sexy about it. It’s just Jiu Jitsu” Jam replied through gritted teeth. She had to admit: on the ground Mary fought like a woman who didn't want to be there, and who knew the basics of how to escape and get the fight back standing. Mary tried several different methods to escape. Unfortunately, Jamila rolled through the requisite positions with a practiced efficiency until Mary was face down on the mat, her shoulder bent precariously under the ebony fighter’s leg. Jamila held Mary's trapped wrist as well, and her free hand rested on the waistband of Mary’s plaid skirt.

“This is an Omoplata” Jamila declared loud enough for the whole cage to hear. “Nothing sexy about it. But if you plan to throw any punches with this arm for the next two months, you should tap out now.”

Mary growled audibly, and when her attempt to escape was preempted by the black girl torquing her arm ever so slightly, Mary tapped the mat twice with another audible growl. Jamila held the submission for a moment longer before she untangled herself from Mary, who rose to her feet immediately, rolling her shoulder around gingerly.

“What's wrong, Mary? Am I too rough for you?” Jamila mocked as she massaged her aching side.

“I figured you couldn't keep up without that pattycake shit” Mary shook her head. “I'm a boxer. You all can have all that wrestling shit.”

“Yeah well, I did Brazilian Jiu Jitsu for years before I ever threw a punch, so I guess we're even.” Jam smiled. “I know I’ve got a lot to learn but at least Simone’s nice about it: it feels like you’re actually trying to hurt me…” Her smile turned wary and she brought her hands up as the boxer approached again.

“I think I understand,” Mary smirked, “But Simone’s nice to you because she's soft. Whether it's a training session or a fight, there's no point pulling punches and sugarcoating everything. Fighting is painful. If you don't want that, find a new hobby…”

“You’re one of those, eh?” Jamila grimaced, partially from her words, and partially from the jab she absorbed. “You sound like the assholes at my last gym.” Jamila muttered as she lashed out, fueled by anger at the mention of the school she'd left early the year before. Now it was Mary's turn to grimace as a swift kick slapped against her thigh.

“And you sound like the type to run around until you find someone who’ll treat you with kid gloves and coddle you.” Mary came over the top of Jamila’s guard with a left hook but ate a knee to the gut on her way in.

Jamila tied Mary up again; those fists into her abs hurt. Mary jostled with her and broke free, but not before eating a few more knees into her legs and stomach. “Nah, I just want to train at a place that treats me like a person, not a soldier, not a slab of meat.”

“Whatever, softie.” Mary scoffed as she muscled some daylight between them and rifled yet another hard shot into the stocky wrestler’s breadbasket.

---

Theresa Bayan could hear them trade opinions and punches from where she sat in the cage. Watching Mary go all out against someone else was fairly terrifying; Mary was unstoppable, menacing, a bully in the ring. Her coach was a problem that Jamila couldn’t quite solve outside of taking Mary off her feet entirely. She was gaining an appreciation for Jen's struggles against her. But Theresa felt her heart rise into her throat as she considered their views: Mary had taught, was teaching her to box, but Jamila’s viewpoint made so much more sense. She’d never considered that there might be an alternative to your coach yelling at you and Mary certainly hit her, hard, during their sessions. The gruff senior had called it “Tough Love” but it felt more like abuse to Theresa. She made a mental note to ask Jamila where she trained…

---

“Keep talking and I'll take that arm home with me.” Jam threatened, moving from Mary’s front to her side and gripping her shoulder, reminiscent of the earlier submission.

“Don't worry, I’m about to let you have it!” Mary growled. She pushed the black girl off her with a shrug and watched her surprise when Jamila found herself suddenly against the cage. The college senior pinned her there with a shoulder and tenderized her unprotected side with a few heavy shots.

---

Jennifer McCowan watched in relative horror at the way Mary bullied Simone’s friend all around the cage. The black girl found success here and there and had even made Mary tap out once, but when they were standing it was clear that Mary was doing what she wanted and the other girl was merely doing what she could.

The Seattle native wondered with mild alarm if her and Theresa looked like this when they fought. It was bad enough that her roommate had a clear strength advantage over her, but watching Mary punish a girl who was shorter and weaker than she was just felt like abuse. As Jen nervously tucked her chin into her knees she knew one thing:

She had to find a way to fight, no, beat up, girls who were stronger than she was.

Perhaps Kelsey had noticed her trepidation, because the slender Asian woman leaned over to her and whispered “Wanna know what she’s doing wrong? You wanna know how to shut down girls like Theresa and Mary?”

The English major nodded enthusiastically and listened intently….

---

The phone alarm they’d been using for a round timer went off and Jamila slowly unwound herself from her training partner. She’d finally relented and brought the action back to the mat again, unwilling to allow Mary more opportunities to rearrange her internal organs. She’d had another simple submission all but secured when the round ended. Now she’d regretted not working that much faster to lock it in when she had the chance…

“Hey meatball” Mary shot.

“It's Jamila. Get it right, ho.” Jamila’s voice carried an uncharacteristic edge as she looked up to the source of the insult.

“Jamila eh? Well I'm Mary. Good shit, bitch; that was fun.” Mary offered a thin smile and an open hand to the still seated Jamila and helped her to her feet. The two exchanged a dap and Mary turned back to her friends while Jamila conferred with her excitable gymmate.

“I want her.” Simone grinned like a buzzsaw.

“What?”

“I want her, Jazz. I’mma take her legs off. I think I’mma actually hurt her. She's acting like those kicks don’t hurt, like her legs are steel. Well you can call me ‘Lil miss blowtorch.’” Simone’s smile was wide and predatory as she gnawed on her mouthguard.

“Oh God, Simone; that joke was Advil. And c'mon; I thought you wanted another crack at the blonde. Now this?” Jamila Hayes knew that the longer they stayed, the more likely tragedy would occur. It was past time to leave as far as she was concerned.

But the Caribbean grappler had learned that dissuading Simone was a fool's errand: when Yolanda’s daughter set her eyes on a fight, it generally happened, whether or not it was ill considered. And talent like hers ensured there weren't enough beatdowns in her past to break her of the habit.

As Simone strode across the cage to pick a fight with the bruiser, Jamila said a short prayer, hoping that leaving here wouldn't entail carrying Simone home in any capacity.

“Hey! You! Boxer chick” Simone called out, her braids bouncing softly.

“Need something, slut?” Mary turned to answer her.

“If she didn't chew up your leg too badly, wanna go a round? I think your style would be fun to fight against.” Simone had a kinetic energy, the heat and warmth and light of an open flame.

“You still want to fight, after the beating I put on your fat friend? Really? Well I guess this way you'll both have matching bruises. Get ready….”

“Simone Waterson” the fighter answered brusquely. “And like I told you: I grew up throwing hands. Boxing, kickboxing, Muay Thai, whatever. I want this. No Mexican style boxers in my gym, so this’ll be fun.”

“Damn, I really don’t care. I don’t want your life story or your hospital bills, slut…” Mary remarked, cracking her knuckles again…

---

Mary vs Simone

---

A minute later and the pair were circling warily.

“No takedowns, no wrestling.” Simone announced, pumping a jab into the empty space between them.

“No complaints here, snowflake.” Mary jeered. “But actions speak louder than words. You can try whatever you want: this beatdown is non-negotiable”

“You think you want that smoke. You’re wrong, but it’s cool- wait, you don't mind me trying something? Oh, this is gonna be lit!”

Theresa watched her friend and coach waste very little time measuring each other out. Mary approached much like she had against Jamila, but Simone moved in and out of her way with a fluidity that her stocky gymmate couldn’t match. Theresa also noticed that Simone’s stance looked entirely different than it had against Rebecca or Kelsey: instead of her normal MMA stance she almost faced sideways, though she tucked her chin into her left shoulder and looked at Mary. Simone now kept one glove by her ribs and flicked it out like a whip while her right hand remained by her chin, armed and loaded. The stance looked extreme, made more so by the fact that Simone’s right and left gloves were differently colored. The black sophomore bobbed and weaved around Mary’s red gloves, never allowing Mary to hit her flush and ensuring she gave the college senior plenty to consider as well.

Theresa swore that she heard Jamila next to her mutter about “Shell…” something or “flicker” something in an exasperated tone but didn’t ask her to clarify.

Instead Theresa watched on in awe as the pair clashed: Simone was constantly moving, punches coming in bursts. Her labmate’s left hand was a blur and though Mary kept advancing, Simone never seemed like she was running from her. Rather, Simone seemed to float around the muscly boxer, stinging her. But Mary pursued the sophomore with cruel intent, her punches tight and crisp, never leaning or wobbly or off balance. Mary was a terror in her own right. And she was beginning to win their exchanges. Fewer and fewer of those wihplike jabs and rocket right hands found an undefended home while Mary pounded Simone in the stomach on several occasions

They kept at it, Mary patient and consistent while Simone dodged and responded in violent bursts. The cocky sophomore ducked beneath a sweeping hook from Mary and once again landed two, three solid punches only to get caught flush by a left to the body and a vicious right hand that broke her rhythm and sent her staggering back.

“Damn!” Simone remarked as she recovered and stood upright. “I guess it’s not quite finished yet. I really thought I had you there.”

“Not in a million years, snowflake. All that prissy Philly Shell shit doesn’t matter to a real boxer.” Mary growled.

“A real boxer? Well damn, I'll make sure to be careful if I ever meet one of those, Maria” Simone taunted in response, her smile obstructed by her red and white mouthguard.

“Mary, Snowflake. The name is Mary.”

“Ehh, same ish.”

“Fuck you too, slut.” Mary’s jaw clenched and her fists tightened. Behind Simone Mary watched her two friends fail to stifle their laughter.

“Ahh, come on; lighten up, Martha. Don’t be so boring. I thought we were having fun learning how to punch each other.” The sassy sophomore beamed. “Alright, alright, I tried being a boxer. You’re better than me at that… by a little bit… for now.” Her eyes narrowed. “Ready for me to get serious and start using all my other limbs too?”

“You can try whatever you want, snowflake. It’s not gonna help. You step in the cage or the ring with me, you get hurt. It’s simple. Easy to remember.”

At that, Theresa watched Simone abandon her previous, sideways, boxing stance and resume the familiar one she’d used to get the best of Kelsey earlier that afternoon. Mary just shook her head and approached, guard tight as ever. Simone crossed the distance between them in one step and where Mary expected to duck an incoming punch, the black girl instead leapt towards Theresa’s coach, burying her knee square into Mary’s chest. The force of the blow sent Mary staggering back and she recovered just in time to prevent Simone from slamming her shin into her jaw. Encouraged, Simone spun the other direction, attacking Mary with a spinning backfist. Simone’s red gloved slammed against Mary’s cheek and sent her reeling for… the first time Theresa could remember. She hadn’t even though Mary capable of being stunned: somehow the pro MMA fighter she shared lab notes with was doing it right in front of her. Mary moved in to clinch but Simone evaded her and kicked her in the thigh for good measure

Mary Ramirez was livid. Rebecca could tell that much. Mary hated a lot of things, but ‘showboats’ were near the top of that list, right below ‘getting beaten up by one.’ A lesser girl would have backpedaled to safety or called a timeout to recover her bearings, but Mary was prideful to a fault. She’d try to fight her way out of this like she had everything else, including that ill-fated match in San Francisco. Pride had cost her more than a win against an obnoxious black woman that night and Rebecca was loathe to let history repeat itself, training session or not.

“Fucking Christ, Mary! Back off and reset!” the blonde yelled. She leaned against the cage, waiting for her friend to find some common sense.

Mary watched her pursuer approach. Simone had a height advantage, exaggerated by her frequent kicks, but time spent with Kelsey had taught her a few methods for negating that. Simone was getting comfortable picking at her, swiping at her with low kicks that dug into her calf and thigh. She watched the young girl’s eyes and leapt into action, sending a left hand straight into Simone’s face before the kick could fully land.

Being caught on one leg did wonders for Simone’s balance, but the moment she needed to put her foot down and regain her stance was more than Mary needed to explode another fist into her face and then corral the black youngster into a tight clinch and introduce fist to stomach. Whatever worries she had about the kickboxer replying in the clinch evaporated as Simone sought only to escape. She did, but only after Mary had reintroduced her glove to Simone’s abs a few more times.

The pair continued their vicious dance again, and Mary led as the cocky sophomore contended herself with long jabs and kicks. Her output slowed as the Latina slugger continued to pressure her. Mary waded forward with hard shots and caught Simone with a uppercut that sent the younger girl scrambling back. In return Simone trotted out that familiar low kick once, twice, and paid for it both times with stiff shots to the jaw. Theresa wondered if her friend was running out of ideas.

And then she watched Simone pivot and kick a third time. Except, she didn't, and the kick never happened. Instead, a red MMA glove shot out and over Mary’s jab, nailing the cagey boxer in her jaw. Mary flinched for just a second to process the punch and Simone tried to buzzsaw through her thigh with a ferocious kick. Theresa watched her coach’s knee buckle with the impact before Simone cracked her with a wide left. Mary recovered enough to fire back and the phone alarm blared the end of the round but Mary finished whatever selection of punches she had in mind, clipping Simone as she relaxed and lowered her guard. The undeclared science major nearly spit out her mouthpiece to protest but all Mary said was the same thing she’d told Theresa no less than twice each time they’d met up for training:

“Protect yourself at all times, slut. It's not a suggestion.”

The black girl muttered something unsavory in response and swatted Mary’s outstretched fist away. The boxer shrugged and Theresa swore Mary had a slight limp as she walked back to the wall of the cage they all currently shared.

“I swear that if you were any more stubborn you'd be an actual jackass.” Rebecca chided, rolling her eyes.

“And if you were any more vindictive you'd be an actual fucking movie villain, Rebecca. I mean a Dios mios, surfer princess. Your need to be queen bee all the time is gonna get you, or us, in trouble.” Mary pressed an accusatory finger into Rebecca’s ample chest.

“It already got her choked out once.” Kelsey snickered.

“No one asked you!” Mary and Rebecca yelled almost in unison.

“Just saying… I'm the only one who didn't get submitted by the fat girl..” The slender fighter beamed.

“Nah, her friend just slapped you around for fun..” Someone shot back.

The trio bantered on until Simone’s voice rang out across the cage.

“Hey! Malibu Barbie! I'm not done slapping the taste out of your mouth! Don't tell me you're done already? I'm still hungry!”

Rebecca placed an arm on Kelsey’s shoulder and slid the saucy brunette out of her way without another word. She met the impertinent girl in the center of the cage, emerald eyes ablaze.

“I'm gonna break you. That's all. Stupid fucking Compton bitch…”

“What? I'm not even from Compton. Racist ass…”

“And I’m not even from Malibu, but that hasn't stopped you, has it? You're the real racist, brat.” The buxom blonde spat.

“You’re about 3 seconds from catching these hands, Rebecca. Pick your words carefully.”

“I'm. Going. To. Own. You. Bitch.” Rebecca made sure to enunciate and emphasize each word.

Simone’s hand flashed out almost of its own volition. It was the unconscious, easy, appropriate response. The only thing that kept the yellow glove from splashing across Rebecca’s stupid beach tanned jaw was Jamila’s ebony arms wrapped around her gymmate, dragging Simone away as she kicked at Rebecca. For her part, Rebecca smiled maliciously until Kelsey slid in front of her to keep her from pursuing.

At the very least, this last round would start when the timer went off, not before.

“If you were smart we'd pack up and go home before you pull some dumb shit, and pull me into it.” Jamila remarked as she adjusted her glasses.

“Nope”

“Then keep her off your body at least.” The Caribbean woman said after a long sigh. “She wrestles like Ysela and is just as persistent with those takedowns, so fight her like Ysesla; mind your hips and legs, don’t plant your feet. She’s not gonna trade with you, she’s gonna look for clinches into that headlock takedown, or the double leg. This is stupid, but if you finna do it then tag her, get her desperate. Stay mobile and if she takes you down pull guard and look for an armbar or a triangle. Those are basic ones that still work. Tap her out.”

“Got it.”

“Just…” Jamila Hayes sighed again as she looked up at the young kickboxer.

“Hey Jazz… thanks. For everything. I know I'm being stupid. Thank you.”

“Bitch,” Jamila cooed affectionately. “If you're gonna do this… at least go out there and body her, alright? No ambiguity.”

“That I can do” Simone beamed.

Across the cage, Rebecca and her friends were having much the same conversation.

“She's actually really strong, so watch out for that.” Kelsey suggested.

“Brilliant” Mary snorted derisively.

“Sorry K, I wanna hear Mary on this one.” Rebecca admitted, prompting the slender Asian woman to cross her arms and pout.

“She'll try and setup that right cross.” Mary confided, visions of her round with Simone still fresh in her mind. “Keep your hands up and be smart with your jab.”

“Hmm, I think-“ The voluptuous blonde suggested.

“Then why’d you ask me, Rebecca?” Her surly Latina friend interrupted. “Listen. Push her to the wall and take away her movement. It’s the core of her offense. And she'll be hunting for kicks, to the leg or body, looking to slow you down. Tie her up, put her on back. You're bigger and stronger. Take this slut out.”

Rebecca bit her lip, smiled, and nodded at the advice. She stepped past Mary before her friend put a hand on her tanned shoulder.

“She’s still a kid. Watch out for bullshit. Make her pay for it.”

“I plan to.”

---

Rebecca vs Simone

---

The phone went off, somewhere in the distance. It signaled the start of a sparring round in the MMA cage of a Southern California gym.

Neither of the women fighting needed to be told to fight.

A sparring round, intended to instruct, to help fighters learn from each other and practice their timing, reactions, and techniques without the stress or stakes of a real match.

Both of the women had different ideas in mind.

This was personal.

Simone had a head full of new ideas she wanted to try out in real time: a million methods and theorems to break down this blonde wrestler. They all worked flawlessly when she saw them in her mind’s eye. But now she needed proof, a full experiment, a test. This was the heart of the scientific method!

She sprinted across the cage, gathered her stride, and leapt towards Rebecca with a flying knee. The blonde slid out of the way, ducked the blow entirely, and let the black woman sail past.

Rebecca recognized it from Simone’s round with Mary and was intent on dominating this bombastic youngster from pole to post and leaving no doubt about who the best fighter here was.

The way Simone had tapped out nearly as soon as Rebecca had attained full mount and done so with a goofy smile on her face, as if this was all just a game with no stakes. Simone was going to learn her place the hierarchy, preferably repeatedly and painfully, and Rebecca was an eager and willing teacher.

Well, she didn’t let Simone fly past without doing something about it.

The voluptuous wrestler wrapped her arms around Simone’s waist and hoisted the girl up and over her head. The rest of the girls in the cage either gasped or cheered when Rebecca’s suplex brought Simone crashing down on the mat on the back of her neck and head. Rebecca released her grip and let the black 19 year old sprawled out on the mat.

Jamila clutched her face in her hands.

This couldn’t have started worse. A German suplex? That was some pro wrestling nonsense. But Simone had demanded this, and her gymmate intended to let her fighter her way out of this.

Rebecca raced to get on top of the still stunned Simone. She couldn’t tell if the girl had been knocked silly or actually enjoyed the ride, but the striker’s goofy smile infuriated her. Then Simone opened her mouth and confirmed the less desirable option.

“A German suplex! Nice! I totally didn’t account for that. Your wrestling acumen is way more extensive than I thought! I mean, I’m annoyed that you dodged, but this is still awesome!” Simone beamed.

“Goddamn you’re annoying, Simone. I’m gonna wipe that stupid smile off your stupid face, bitch. Where’s that black girl magic now, bitch?”

“Try harder, Rebecca. And please try to enjoy yourself; this shit’s supposed to be fun. Also… Wu Tang.”

Rebecca groaned. “Wait, what? Wu Tang?”

Simone swung her hips suddenly and slid out from beneath Rebecca. In the next moment her leg swung up and onto Rebecca’s shoulder. The excitable fighter caught one of Rebecca’s arms and clamped one leg over the other, trapping Rebecca in one of the few Jiu Jitsu holds Simone could faithfully reproduce, an Arm Triangle.

“Protect Ya Neck!” Simone beamed, squeezing her legs tighter and looking to wring an early submission out of Rebecca. The blonde spat an expletive before deciding to conserve her air and find a way to prevent being choked with her own arm. The other women in the cage reversed their cheering and groans to reflect this reversal of fortunes, all except for Jamila Hayes, who had accompanied Simone from Binary Star gym and still held her clenched fists in front of her mouth. The Triangle wasn’t quite tight enough, Simone hadn’t almost but not quite secured the submission, and she watched in horror as Rebecca gathered Simone up, hoisted the young fighter up into the air, and slammed her onto the mat for the second time this session. Simone landed with a thud but didn’t go limp. She was still conscious, still in the fight. Simone released the hold and lay there on the mat but Rebecca didn’t look much better, kneeling and gasping for air.

“Alright, that slam shit is getting old Rebecca. I get it: you’re one of those corn-fed white girls and you wanna make sure everyone knows how strong you are. You eat your Wheaties before you go surfing or tanning or whatever but-” Simone rolled backwards and stood, clearly shaken but ready to fight.

“Do you actually never get tired of saying stupid shit?” The blonde growled in response. “I mean, Jesus Christ it’s like you’re physically incapable of shutting the fuck up.” Rebecca rose to her feet, eager to silence the cocky knockout artist.

They stood and traded tentatively, Rebecca taking the lead and clogging the air between them with punches. Her intent to draw Simone into a firefight was clear but the Los Angeles native refused to take the bait, offering measured counters instead and never staying in one place for long. She seemed content to let Rebecca miss as she came forward and reward the voluptuous blonde with stinging kicks for her efforts before sliding away back towards the middle of the cage. On and on they went, Rebecca unable to put meaningful leather onto her and helping to demonstrate why the young black fighter’s moniker was “Slick” when Simone ducked and swayed and avoided several shots by the slimmest of margins, frequently tagging Rebecca instead. Her first strategy defused, Rebecca eschewed punches and dashed towards Simone only to get rocked by a waiting left hook. The next approach found a sharp knee jutting into her. The busty beach princess was suddenly a boat unable to make its way past the rocks and onto the shore. When she finally bullied her way in and got a grip of her opponent the slippery striker twisted free and blasted Rebecca with another hook and two chopping kicks, then leapt towards the reeling blonde and detonated a soaring red glove onto her face. The blow sent Rebecca tumbling back towards the cage, senses on full alert.

This was wrong. All of it. She’s not supposed to do this. I’m supposed to beat her… dammit!

Frazzled and furious, Rebecca rose to find the sophomore beckoning her, waving her in to face more punishment. “Damn, you’re still awake. I thought that would put you sleep. Ah well. I’m right here, Barbie,” she taunted. “Come on, get a second serving. I’ll be cooking up ass whoopings as long as you’re hungry!”

“Stop chasing her, Becky.” Mary growled as she leaned against the wall of the cage. “Let it come to you.”

Rebecca Meyers stood, fists clenched, and approached tentatively. Simone picked her shots, an angry orbiting satellite, sending kicks and punches at the busty white fighter. Rebecca endured the abuse until an open handed yellow glove splashed across her face and left her seeing red.

“Got ‘em coach!” Simone yelled to no one in particular.

Getting punched she could accept, but slapped? Fucking disrespected? In her own gym? Maybe Kelsey could find humor in it, but Rebecca Meyers was going to tear this slut limb from limb

Simone’s next kick landed, but when she brought it back there was Rebecca, face full of fury and arms wrapped around her calf.

Dammit; I guess I got careless

Simone pushed down on the wrestler, tried to hop away, but they crashed down onto the canvas for the third time this round, and Rebecca sought to extend her stay. She crawled up the young pro fighter as they wrestled, eventually wrapping her arms around Simone’s head while she pinned her down with her body.

“The headlock and… side control. Yeah…” Kelsey muttered. She’d spent a lot of time wrestling with Rebecca and knew the blonde’s affinity for this position well. More curious was if Rebecca would demonstrate exactly why she loved this particular position so much… There it was

With Simone trapped beneath her and Rebecca on her side facing her, it was just a natural byproduct that Rebecca’s full bosom happened to press against Simone’s face. That was an inescapable fact of gravity and biology. When the busty blonde wrapped an arm behind Simone’s head and pulled her into her ample cleavage, that was intentional.

And certainly not unnoticed by her unwilling victim.

“Get your udders out of my face” Simone groaned.

“Make me” came the haughty reply, punctuated by several fists and knees to Simone’s face and body. Rebecca luxuriated in the feeling of the younger, shorter fighter squirming uncomfortably beneath her, unable to free herself.

This was more like it, more of the domination she imagined, no demanded.

She sought to straddle the girl and rain down leather to bring this short lived rivalry to a close, but Simone was surprisingly persistent about keeping Rebecca from improving her position. She considered a full attempt at choking her out with this current headlock; Simone drowning in Rebecca’s ample cleavage would be a fitting end for the cheeky sophomore. She fed the black girl some leather while she considered her options.

A momentary lapse in her concentration gave a flagging Simone all the space she needed to throw a flailing elbow and force her escape when it connected with Rebecca’s jaw. Jamila always mentioned how wild elbows didn't constitute a legal escape in Jiu Jitsu, but fuck, this wasn’t Jiu Jitsu. A desperate scramble ensued and though she paid the toll in heavy shots, Simone found her way back to her feet, the blonde still clinging to her, leaning on her, abusing her.

“Just get off me.” An exhausted Simone demanded…

“Make me!” Rebecca crowed.

They leaned against the chain linked wall of the cage, an unglamorous tangle of groaning limbs and impotent threats. Jennifer’s phone blared the end of the round but Rebecca didn’t let go, whether due to malice or exhaustion, instead pushing Simone’s face further into the wall of the cage. When her pushing and wriggling didn’t secure her escape, Simone Waterson resorted to insults. Rebecca finally let her go, just in time to catch another flailing elbow in the face.

Now they were both pissed.

If this had been a tense spar before, it quickly devolved into a nasty fight. The two charged at each other, tired, and past the point of dealing with whatever new bullshit the other could come up with. Insults and fists flew, and the former continued even after friends and gymmates intervened to keep the pair from actually maiming each other. Jamila grabbed a hold of Simone while Mary and Kelsey pulled Rebecca away, leaving the two fledgling sophomores staring at each other unsure what to do.

“Nah, let me go!” Simone roared. “I’mma kill her, Jazz. I'll actually catch a body… I swear I'll…”

“Go home, chill the hell out, and hope to God none of this ends up online, cause if your mom finds out what happened we’re actually dead. Corpses…” Jamila shivered at the thought while she walked Simone out of the cage, stopping only to collect their bags and adjust her glasses. “I knew this runback was a bad idea but you went ahead and confirmed it. Nice job…”

“...Damn” Simone acceded. “Damn… Let’s just bail…l… sorry Jamila. I guess I was on one…”

---

Rebecca was cornered, figuratively and literally, by the two classmates she'd come to know very well over her college career. Now those two were trying to keep her from making any more poor decisions…

“Who the hell does she think she is?” Rebecca raged. “I'm going to rip her head off and-“

“Calmate, Rebecca, calm down, be cool. Just think…” Mary advised.

“Yeah, like, this was fun. They're fun.” Kelsey continued in her characteristically bubbly tone. “Way better than you said they’d be. I mean, Janelle or whatever her name was, she tapped out you and Mary. I think she needs to lighten up, but we'll get there, and Simone’s kind of a beast once she gets going… like… watching you two go at it gave me chills.” The Eurasian brunette gave a lusty smile.

“Yeah, like the airhead said.” Mary shrugged. “They don't totally suck. I could have some fun with either of them.”

The haughty blonde’s fury was only beginning to subside, but she stopped trying to forcibly make her way past her friends; if Mary and Kelsey were in agreement about anything, particularly anyone, that was news unto itself.

“Goddamit… just…” Rebecca pounded her fist into her palm. “Did we at least get it on camera?”

“Oh did we EVER!” Kelsey assured her, her bubbly smile sharpening.

---

“Why’d Rebecca hold on like that?” Theresa asked aloud.

“Why’d Simone deck her?” Jennifer countered.

“Why do you always stan for Rebecca! Is she your new hero or something?” Theresa asked, her tone angrier than intended.

“The same reason you keep defending your little lab partner even when she’s totally acting like a butt!”

“Nuh-uh!” Theresa protested.

“I said-“

A more important realization dawned on the two rookies in unison.

“I guess we're walking back to campus…”

---

Later that week, at the Binary Star Gym in Los Angeles, California, the gym’s two co-owners leaned over a phone held between them.

“Where’d you’d find this, ‘Dre?” Yolanda Waterson asked, irritated. The gym’s striking/boxing coach was staring down at the phone watching her daughter getting ragdolled by a blonde white girl before a woman who looked suspiciously like the back of Jamila’s head slid in front of the camera and the video clip came to a close.

“Cameron” Was Andre’s response. Andre Collins was the gym’s instructor for wrestling and mixed martial arts. ‘Cameron’ was his son, and a budding heavyweight boxer with Olympic dreams. “I found it on his… InstaPic account, or whatever the hell it's called.” The old man was exasperated searching for the name of the social media site. “You know the kids and this social media shit, Yola.”

“Yeah Dre, I know… I just… this looks bad… and right when we're negotiating the contract with…”

“Yeah, I know Yolanda. But Simone’s young, and it's not like she went down to one of them semi pro league and fought topless or nothing…” the retired fighter and current coach scratched his neck.

“I think I'd actually prefer that, Dre.” The gym’s matriarch looked up from the phone to stare Andre in his eyes. “Hell, I did topless stuff during my career; that wasn’t the reason I had problems finding fights.” Yolanda chuckled ruefully. “If anything, that sexy, foxy shit made me a few new fans. I get it, it's not for everyone, that's fine. What pisses me off is that she told Jam but didn't tell me. I tried my best to be the kinda mom that my daughter could tell anything. Y'know, did she tell her dad about this? Or anyone else besides Jamila?”

“Damn Yola… that's…”

“That and it looks like she's getting her ass handed to her, but if she can't handle a wrestler that's your fault Dre… you and Ysela and Jonathan and..” Yolanda’s face finally cracked a smile.

“Aw nah, if she's getting trucked by some corn-fed white girl that's on her. I gave her the tools…” They shared a look. “But listen Yola; if you want her to trust you, you gotta trust her.l

“What do you mean?”

“Peep, Yolanda.” Andre checked his phone again. “If she had told you what was going on, would you have tried to stop her?”

“Of course.” Yolanda’s brown eyes narrowed.

“And that's exactly why she didn't tell you. Look, I unno what's up with you and Isaiah, but Simone’s in college; she ain't a kid anymore. You gotta let her make choices and support her.”

“Like you and Cameron?”

“THAT knucklehead…” Andre sighed…”Yeah, like his dumbass haircut and that stupid ass tattoo he wanted to get. I convinced him not to tattoo his face, remember?”

“Yeah…” Yolanda’s voice trailed off. Perhaps trust was a thing she’d yet to offer her daughter…

For now though, there would be consequences and punishment...

---

#Writing #Series #FeintingSpells #Fiction #Action #Fight #MartialArts

Last Chapter First Chapter Next Chapter

---

Early November, That Year

---

A fiery conversation between Simone, college sophomore and rising pro MMA star and Rebecca Meyers, Resident Advisor for a university in southern California and a talented MMA fighter in her own right, has led to this: heated, full contact MMA sparring sessions between Rebecca, her friends, Simone, and her gymmate Jamila. Rebecca’s invited everyone to the gym she and her friends train at, and the leather has flown.

Caught in the crossfire are Theresa and Jennifer, college students, friends to Simone, and Rebecca’s residents.

The last set of sparring rounds saw everyone who stepped up struggle eventually, and in the meantime Jen and Theresa have only previously boxed and are curious about trying mixed martial arts for the first time...

---

Jennifer McCowan had more questions than answers swimming through her head at this moment. There was a starting point and an endpoint but only confusion in between. It didn't help that her teacher felt ridiculously, impossibly strong, and that every eye in a 10 radius was watching her flounder.

“Rebecca… can you show me again? The first bit… just… what?” The slender woman ran her hand up her forehead and swept a sweaty lock of green hair away from her face. She just wanted to get this right, to impress the older girls who’d deigned to give her the time of day.

“Sure thing, Jen.” The young blonde said with a winning smile. The pair stood up again and resumed fighting stances. At least until the college senior stopped to correct the budding fighter's stance. “Remember, don't stick your leg out like that. I know it's fine for boxing but…” and in one fluid motion the older girl crouched and shot forward, wrapping her arms around the flailing sophomore’s leg and hugging it tightly to her chest. “Here it's just asking to get grabbed and you totes don't want that.” The surly Resident Advisor slapped her resident's pale thigh playfully and backed off.

Jennifer blushed and muttered the advice to herself out loud as she tugged on her gloves; they felt almost nonexistent compared to the big bulky boxing gloves she was used to. Wiggling her fingers while training was still a novel experience.

“Try it on me now, k?” Rebecca waved her in, rousing the lanky brunette from her wild-eyed muttering.

Jen crouched, took a deep breath and crouched, trying her best to emulate her RA's pose. She lunged forward, arms ready and grasping, and locked them around Rebecca’s leg.

Holy shit, she’s got muscles.

Jen stared at the leg, tried to pull the limb up and towards her but it was like lifting a stone column. A tanned stone column. She redoubled her effort and gave it another heave until a hand slapped her on the back and pushed her away. The awkward sophomore stumbled and fell, looking up to see a smirking Rebecca shaking her head. “Don’t pull me towards you, Jen; put your chest on my leg and then take me with you when you stand up. Try it that way.”

Jennifer could feel her face reddening. She stood up quickly and put her hands up in front of her. She was certain everyone was laughing, whether she could see them or not.

This was stupid and she was stupid for trying and she should just leave and stop embarrassing herself and

A different hand on her shoulder this time. Then Kelsey’s warm smile.

“Hey, hey, Jen, deep breaths. You can totally do this. Just like learning to pivot when you threw that cross punch with your right hand. That was complicated then and you got it. You can totally do this. We’re all here rooting for you. Don’t think about the steps, think about that essay you haven’t written yet and let your body go to work” Kelsey whispered into her ear. The college senior had given Jen a crash course on boxing when she’d agreed to fight her roommate and those lessons had worked better than she’d ever thought they could. She’d almost won that fight.

Hell, maybe throwing Theresa around could be part of her revenge. She’d need someone to use this on afterwards

“Go get her, Meanstreak” Kelsey giggled, accentuating her peptalk with a playful slap on the ass before she walked away from the center of the ring and left tutor and pupil to finish their lesson. As Jennifer resumed her stance, she realized that wasn’t sure which ‘her’ Kelsey meant…

The next attempt had been better. The one after that more so. And finally, on the 4th attempt Jennifer McCowan wrapped her arms and torso around Rebecca’s leg, lifted, and slung her down to the ground. Jen followed her to the mat tentatively as the blonde tensed up and readied for more grappling on the mat.

“Yes! I did it! Hell yeah!” Jen exclaimed. It took her a moment to recognize Rebecca waving her in towards her.

“Great job…” Rebecca trailed off.

“Thanks! Wait… thanks?”

“Kinda” the older student teased. “So you got me down. Now what?”

“Now I guess I… hold you there?” Jennifer shrugged.

“That’s a start, yeah, but you could also try hitting me. Punch me, knee me, and try to hold me down while you do it.”

“That sounds kinda complicated…” The brunette lamented. The green streaks in her dark brown hair matched her eyes.

“Don’t worry, just give it a try. Come here.”

---

5 minutes later and Jennifer McCowan had successfully shown some semblance of grappling intuition. Rebecca Meyers had shown her a simple takedown, the theory of what to do when she successfully used it to drag her opponent to the floor, and even a nifty way to use that takedown when her and the girl she was fighting were all tangled up in the clinch. Though she’d only ever boxed to that point, the English major had shown excitement, interest where the subject of grappling was concerned.

Wrestling didn’t seem so scary after all. Even for a slim, lanky, awkward girl like her.

Now she needed someone to try it on for real. Jen immediately looked towards the wall where her roommate Theresa sat next to Simone and a woman Jen didn’t recognize. Simone and the new girl were both black, and the new girl was shaped kind of like Theresa: glasses, and cute, in a chubby, way too curvy kinda way, but the mysterious girl was shorter, darker, with thicker legs and big poofy hair. Jen recognized her as the one who’d choked Rebecca unconscious earlier but couldn’t remember her name.

This wasn't about her anyways.

Rebecca saw her tutee’s stare and called out for her. “Hey, Theresa! Wanna go a round with Jennifer? She doesn’t have anyone else to train with.”

Where Rebecca had called out on Jennifer’s behalf, Simone answered for Theresa.

“That’s fucked up, Malibu. How you give Jen a private session and then straight up sic her on T like that? That’s dirty.”

Everyone in the cage and several people outside it could see that the 5 minute sparring session that Rebecca and Simone had shared had done nothing to improve their relationship.

“Well, Theresa won their match, barely, so I thought Jen could use a little extra training session. It's only fair…” the green eyed senior gave an exaggerated shrug.

Simone wasn’t having it. “Nah… Theresa, stand up. I’m finna give you an… accelerated crash course in kickboxing. Just the basic fundamentals, with an emphasis on easy to apply principles and techniques. It'll be lit. I promise. We’ll take what you already know about boxing and just… bend it a little. The differences between them are mad intriguing to me.”

Theresa almost choked on her water. She’d hoped to escape this session unscathed but the past 90 seconds had murdered any hope of that. She stood up tentatively and faced Simone.

“…Sure?”

“Take your glasses off and put your gloves on” Simone deadpanned. “Goofy ass…” .

“...Oh!” Theresa said, reaching for her face and confirming that yes, her glasses were in fact still there. The nerdy sophomore was too dark to blush but tried her best anyways. She reached for her gloves, put them on, then touched her face, realized her glasses were still there, and finally took them off and flung them towards the corner of the cage where her new friend Jamila was sitting. She’d seen Jamila toss her glasses to Simone before her sparring session with Rebecca and wanted to look as cool as she had.

Unfortunately Theresa missed her target by a few feet and then sheepishly walked over, picked them up, and handed them to Jamila.

Not quite the intro I wanted… Lame…

Simone was waiting in her fighting stance, all smiles and bouncy, relaxed energy. Theresa approached tentatively, her stance tight, her steps heavy and plodding. Her MMA tutor couldn't resist a smirk, but that curdled as Theresa approached.

“Hold up; you're going to want the heavy shin guards for this...”

Theresa didn't like the thick foam shin guards very much: they were cumbersome and made her legs sweat but Simone probably knew what she was doing and so Theresa complied with only a few complaints. No sooner had the stocky neophyte resumed her stance than Simone lashed out and kicked her leg.

Theresa recoiled in pain and blurted out shot an expletive back at Simone, who merely stuck her tongue out. “And that's the difference between kickboxing and boxing. We're looking to avoid that.” Simone wisecracked. “So move your front leg back and widen your stance.” The physical sciences major turned to give Theresa a better view. Her chemistry labmate mimicked as best she could, but Simone couldn’t help but should out particular adjustments: widen this, bend that, move that there. After a minute Simone shrugged and kicked once again just to demonstrate that now Theresa’s leg was out of range.

“Great, now move with me.” Simone waved her on. Theresa approached, stuck between the sturdy, careful footwork she’d learned from Mary in order to box and Simone’s bouncy strafing. Simone moved like the kind of fighter Mary frequently griped about. She looked around:

If Mary wasn’t here, she wouldn’t mind Theresa trying something different, right?

Right?

“So, boxing gloves are huge, MMA gloves are small, so don’t try and block punches with your hands. Use your arms, or shoulders, or better yet keep moving and just don’t be there. Be anywhere else...” Simone explained. Teresa nodded as if she understood. She did understand, mostly, she thought. She was already used to using her arms and shoulders to block things, and the girls in the videos she’d seen seemed even more willing to clinch and hold each other, so that strategy should need to change too much. Moving though… that might take a while to sink in.

What direction where you supposed to move besides forwards, and sometimes back?

Her mind drifted back to the nickname Mary had given her: the muscle bound Mexican-American girl had taken to calling her “Cuddles” precisely for her habit of looking to clinch and hold and “hug” every time Theresa got punched hard enough. But what else was she to do, getting punched hurt and she wanted the other person to stop it!

She shook Mary’s taunts out of her head for now and tried to follow along with Simone’s next instruction.

“Thankfully your punches still work, so we’re not exactly starting from jump” Simone smiled, “but let's try and kick.” Simone’s body unwound like a coiled spring and her leg carved a screaming arc through the empty air in front of her. The stout boxer winced instinctively. Simone explained it as a basic “round kick,” from Muay Thai. Basic or not, the movement looked so complex that Teresa wasn't sure where to focus. Simone must have caught the look of wild-eyed terror in Theresa' eyes because the next time she tried that kick the result was a simpler looking motion that Teresa was grateful for. Jamila even stood up to demonstrate it for her as well.

She tried it in earnest, certain that she’d nailed it. Then she caught Simone’s squinting, confused, dissatisfied expression. “Wait what?” Theresa complained she tried again, filtering everything Simone had said and done through the Filipina slugger’s limited dexterity. “This might take a while” She heard Simone mutter. “Not bad; show me again! All the power comes from your hips, like a right hook. You got curves, Theresa; use that shit, girl!” Jamila called out in support.

Theresa’s next attempt softened Simone’s face a little but invited more “corrections,” and so she tried again. Theresa’s confidence grew as the pro fighter encouraged her.

I must be killing it so far

The brawler unwound another kick, careful to try and incorporate the new feedback. Whether it was the extra force she exerted, sweat on the mat, or the strange sensation of trying to move on one foot, physics conspired against her and she instead fell directly on her ass.

“Owwwww…”

The black girl almost stifled her laugh as she offered Theresa a hand up. “Yup. That’s about right. Welcome to Muay Thai. Now you’re one of us.” She joked. Theresa accepted the help, still rubbing her butt. She thought she heard a few snickers of laughter in the crowd but tried to ignore it.

Thankfully, Theresa’s next attempt didn’t end in physical comedy. She had to admit, there was something kind of cool about swinging your entire leg out like that, like a baseball bat. Simone had helped her figure out how to aim it, to throw it at legs and bodies, and what it felt like to actually land one. She thought she was ready to take on her roommate again until Simone upended her confidence with a single line.

“Great, now let’s put it all together.”

“What?”

“You can do them, now do them together.”

“Do we have to?”

Simone’s expression made it clear that this wasn’t optional, and Jamila yelled out her support. Theresa begrudgingly assented, rolling her broad shoulders and returning to her stance. Simone guided her through a series of punches, rolling that singular kick into the series like fruit into a pastry. The strikes weren’t so bad, but Simone insisted on so. much. Movement. To Theresa it felt like Simone never stopped moving, taking little steps or twists and turns between the punches and kicks. Just watching her was exhausting let alone mimicking it. But Theresa whined and complained and trudged through it until the curvy, athletic black girl pulled her into a hug.

“Great job,” she whispered in their embrace. “Now go out there and beat her ass. I’m rooting for you, T!”

As they released, Simone lamented that she’d hadn’t had enough time to do a intro on avoiding takedowns, but Jamila, not to mention Rebecca, complained so loudly that Simone backed off.

“Besides, if anyone’s doing a demo on ‘no touching,’ it’s me.” Jam started, adjusting her glasses and the hairband securing her massive puff of coiled hair.

“Can I help?” Kelsey teased, blowing a kiss across the cage and groping a pair of invisible breasts. The stout submission grappler visibly shuddered and prepared a retort before Rebecca raised her voice.

“Seriously though. You losers had all the time in the world to teach her or whatever. I wanna see Jen and Theresa go at it again. Last time was a lot of fun, but super raw, and I wanna see if their training did anything to improve that.”

The two sophomore roommates looked at each other, preparing to go at it again seriously for the first time since their boxing match.

“Let’s try this mixed martial arts thing, unless you’re scared.” Jennifer challenged

“As if, Jen. You’re going down for the count just like last time!” Her roommate countered.

Jennifer bristled at the callback. “Don’t forget I knocked you down first!”

“Yeah, but I got up; when you went down you stayed there. Wanna try again?”

As the two sophomores argued, their RA couldn’t contain her glee. “Oh fuck yeah; this is gonna be totes amazing.” She waited eagerly for the two neophytes to work themselves into a lather and actually hit each other with malicious intent. Fighting was always more fun with a bit of drama behind it, after all.

---

Jennifer vs. Theresa Redux

Jennifer and Theresa approached, gear ready and tempers hot. Jamila looked back and forth between them while Kelsey pulled her phone from the corner and set a timer for 5 minutes.

“Being honest, you’re both pretty new to this, and a full contact session is almost certainly a bad, irresponsible idea, but hey, so is most of today. Why stop now? On the real: when I tell you to stop, or pause, or let go, or stand up, just shut up and do it, or I’ll choke you like I did Rebecca…” Jamila deadpanned with a wry smile. The blonde rolled her eyes and raised a middle finger in silent response. “I’d tell you more about how you’re still friends and shit but meh, just get this out of your system, beat each other up now, and makeup later…” The bespectacled grappler shook her head as the two neophytes wandered into striking range and started trading leather…

---

Mary Ramirez checked her phone. The unread texts from ‘Becca got progressively angrier. She hadn't responded to any of them; she'd told Rebecca that she had class when the blonde had first informed her of this escapade. Angry texts weren't gonna change that.

Yeah, I’m late. I told you I had class till 11:30, slut, but you had just had to have this stupid little session now, huh? Whatever Rebecca.

The college senior was still wearing the T-shirt and jogging shorts she’d worn to class that day as she walked into the familiar gym. She gave the guy behind the front counter a cursory nod and immediately headed towards the back. She’d hoped to find them in the boxing ring and sighed when all the commotion came from the cage instead. Mary muttered an expletive and hefted her gym bag on her shoulder as she approached.

“Where the hell were you, slut?” Rebecca challenged as her friend strolled up nonchalantly.

“Where I told you I’d be, bitch. Some of us actually attend our classes here.” Mary countered as she dropped her red gym bag and rifled through it. “So it’s small gloves today, eh? Typical. Qué lastima: I go through all the trouble of teaching that poor girl to box like a real woman just so you two can come by and ruin it with your ‘mixed martial arts?’” Mary said that phrase like it was a dirty word. “It’s like Shannon all over again…”

The mention of that name prompted Kelsey to shoot Mary an icy glare. The new arrival returned the tense, wordless stare before Rebecca interrupted Mary with a playful shove.

“Whoa; I can’t possibly be to blame if Shannon found out that she enjoys being the one getting squeezed, bent, and slammed.” ‘Becca shrugged coldly. “It’s totes not my fault that most of the action is MMA rather than boxing: the internet doesn't wanna watch two girls make out while wearing mittens.”

“Ugh, that's the point: I don't wanna make out with anyone...” Mary complained as she looked on.

“Not until they’re bleeding and whimpering…” the sultry blonde protested.

Mary answered that accusation with a smile before changing the subject. “Wow: they look even worse here than boxing. It’s like watching two kids flailing in a ball pit.”

“Yeah, like you trying to wrestle.” Kelsey sniped.

“Or you trying to box, puta sucia.” Mary fired back.

“Ladies… don’t make me play peacemaker.” Rebecca smiled ruefully. “You know how poorly it suits me…”

---

Theresa’s eyes watered and her cheek stung, but she wasn’t going to stop now. She had to keep moving in.

Simone’s warning about the difficulty of blocking punches with MMA gloves had proved prescient: her roommate had tagged her twice in the mouth so far without Theresa offering much in the way of a response. She pursued her green haired roommate across the cage, hands up, and successfully parried the next punch. These gloves had a lot less padding than the boxing gloves she was used to, and every punch stung a little more. Jennifer bounced in front of her in that loose stance of hers, firing off punch after punch. Some missed. Some landed on her gloves. The rest hurt. The voluptuous Filipina’s face stung but she just needed to close the gap and wipe the smile of her skinny roommate's face.

---

Rebecca and Kelsey watched the rookies with rapt attention, trading looks back and forth: there was a vicious smile creeping across Jennifer’s face, growing wider with each unanswered punch.

“Oh my god, she's totes enjoying this…” Rebecca murmured.

“I know right? That's ‘Meanstreak’ for you. Theresa better watch out.” Kelsey watched the woman she’d taught you box a few weeks ago score with a crisp jab.

“Everyone better watch out. I can't wait to get her back here for the next Friday session, Kelsey. She's gonna kill.” the blonde beamed.

“Sounds like you've found a new project, ‘Becca. I can't imagine Katie will be too happy to hear that though” The slender fighter vividly remembered the last woman Rebecca had seen potential in, and what she was up to now.

“She had her chance. She knows what she did.” Rebecca spat.

---

Jennifer’s fists kept flying until the stout brawler answered back with a heavy right hand to Jennifer’s pale stomach and her roommate backed off for a bit. Theresa wanted to chase her until she heard Simone’s voice saying how her kicks were longer than her punches. That… made sense to her.

On the next exchange the Long Beach native threw a jab that just missed but then followed it with the round kick she’d learned minutes earlier. She was almost surprised when it connected with her lanky roommate’s hip, painting a grimace where a smirk had been. Comforted, Theresa charged ahead, digging a wide hook into her roommate’s body and then kicking her again. The rotation of the kick was still novel, and she only managed to catch Jen’s calf that time, but it was something!

The curvy brawler walked toward Jennifer with impunity, daring her lithe roommate to stop her. To her surprise, Jen obliged. The Seattle-born sophomore dashed toward her, eager to tie up those wrecking ball fists. Jennifer grabbed one of her roommate’s wrists but ate a pair of right hooks before Theresa broke her grasp, sending Jennifer stumbling to the mat. Undeterred, Jenn rose and charged. This time she started with Theresa’s right hand, punched the voluptuous brawler in her face a few times, and corralled her other arm after a brief struggle, a loud complaint, and several more punches to her side.

No crop tops for me tomorrow

Whatever, now she had her. The sophomore tried to recreate the exact motions that Rebecca had shown her earlier and sure enough, she lifted Theresa’s thick thigh and drove the Filipina biology student onto the mat, making sure to try and land directly on her. “Hope I didn't hurt you too much, Theresa; ready to give up? It only gets worse from here” she menaced.

“Get bent, Jen. This doesn't even hurt. You're just sharp and pointy…” her curvy roommate spat back.

Jennifer McCowan stopped for a second to think: she was still on top of her squirming roommate, but..

What next? All of this grappling stuff was new to her. They just let you stand back up in boxing.

Jennifer tried to remember the cool stuff Rebecca had done to Simone. Someone inside the cage yelled “Hit her!” and that was enough. Still tangled up with her thicker roommate, she leaned heavily on her and dug short hooks into Theresa’s stomach, drawing a grunt from her roommate each time. She remembered Rebecca moving around until she was sitting on Simone; the wiry brunette tried to extricate herself and follow suit. Instead, Theresa clutched her roommate closely, leaving Jen with little to do except squirm and throw ineffective punches. Then she slipped an arm free and remembered the one tactic both of her mentors had used in their rounds.

“Stop grabbing my breasts you perv! Cut it out, Jennifer, that's weird” Theresa groaned.

“Mmm, make me!” Her roommate cooed, her hand still cupping and rubbing Theresa’s impressive chest.

“C'mon… that's not… quit it! St- oww!” Her waning protests were pierced by a sharp groan when Jennifer transitioned from fondling her roommate to punching any soft spot she could find. Theresa immediately changed tack and wrapped her arms and legs entirely around the boundary challenged white woman.

---

Jamila looked at the two scrabbling novices and shot a look of confusion and disgust at Simone, who replied with a silent shrug.

“Yup, she was definitely trained by Kelsey alright…” Jamila remarked bitterly before interrupting the cuddle fest and helping the two fighters back to their feet.

“Neither of you actually know what you’re doing down there, so let's stand up and try again. This is mad depressing…”

---

Restarting the session had a sobering effect on the pair, who approached tentatively, neither willing to make a mistake. Jennifer resumed her strategy of long, leaning jabs, menacing her roommate. She found modest success, tempered by her flagging stamina. They traded there in the center of the cage: Jen continued to set the pace with long lancing punches while Theresa mixed kicks into her deliberate, heavy, close range offense. Jen tried to tie up Theresa every time she approached, forcing her stout, shorter roommate to spend time and energy shaking her off. As they broke from another clinch though, the Long Beach native raised her gloves, leaned away from a jab, and ducked under a particularly languid followup from Jennifer.

Time slowed down for Jennifer as she watched her roommate slip beneath her outstretched arm. The sophomore replayed her mentor’s unheeded advice about proper punching form and how to prevent this exact scenario. She promised to remember it next time. For now she was helpless and could only watch Theresa unload a clenched fist right into her unprotected jaw.

Woah. Wow. No thank you.

Jennifer’s vision blurred briefly and she saw stars, or bright lights, or something. Whatever she was, she hoped to not make it a frequent trip. She brought her hands to her face; she really just needed a moment to stop and clear out the cobwebs.

Just a second, please.

Then a troubling realization hit her harder than the punch had:

Goddamit, my stupid fatass roomate is gonna knock me out again! How? Is she just better than me? What did I do wrong? I don't wanna look like a loser in front of Kelsey and ‘Becca.

Jennifer shut her eyes tight and screamed internally while she awaited the knockout blow that would usher her into dreamland.

She heard a loud thump and assumed it was the sound of a fist colliding with her face, accompanied by raucous yells.

I don't… hurt? I feel nothing? Am I unconscious? Is this what that feels like?

The humanities major opened her eyes and instantly understood: Theresa hadn't just missed, she'd flubbed another kick entirely and fallen on her ass again. Jennifer definitely heard someone in crowd yell derisively about “fucking newbies” and blushed in shame.

We probably do look pretty stupid right now.

She dove on top of her roommate anyways, fists flying; this was her chance to turn straw into gold. She landed a few vicious shots until a panicked Theresa caught one of her arms and bucked her hips wildly. The pair rolled over on the mat, a tangled mess of flailing limbs desperate for dominance. Theresa finally ended up on top and elected to catch her breath instead of return the abuse. She pressed her voluptuous torso onto her roommate and tried to pin her down enough to keep the Seattle hipster from catching her with anything substantial.

“Get your fat tits off my face!” Jennifer menaced

“Make me! Or better yet, grow a pair!” Theresa spat back. “What happened to you trying to grab them earlier? I’m just giving you want.”

Their erstwhile referee wondered whether to cut this session short and intervene: this had steadily devolved into something ill-natured and malicious, not to mention moves like that still made her uncomfortable. She struggled to believe Simone that these two were roommates and friends when the gloves were off.

Moments before Jamila called a halt, Jennifer squirted free of her roommate and instantly tried to tackle Theresa again, dragging the thick Filipina striker back to the mat. This time, Theresa managed to wrap her legs entirely around her roommate's torso. Jamila smiled; she could recognize a closed guard in her sleep. Believe it or not, Theresa had finally made a good decision on the ground: from there she'd taken away most of Jennifer’s methods to hurt her. It was a pity Theresa didn't know a submission or a sweep from that position on her back: she had Jennifer right where she wanted her if only she knew she wanted her there. As it was all Theresa was doing was squeezing Jennifer's slim waist between her ample thighs…

Remind me to explain “guard position” in Jiu Jitsu to her.

The pair struggled there in Theresa’s grappling guard until the alarm on Kelsey Liao's phone announced the end of the round.

The pair stopped and shared a tense stare. It would be a few more seconds before Theresa actually let go, or before Jennifer would offer to help Theresa to her feet. They stood and regarded each other warily before the plump fighter caught her roommate in a great big hug.

“Nice job! That was crazy intense, Jennifer. So cool!”

Jennifer responded in kind, the ire draining from her voice.

“That would have been so cool if…”

“I know right? Or if…”

“Right? Next time…”

Their excited exchange was interrupted by Simone draping an arm across either of them, congratulating them. The pro fighter was obviously excited by what she'd seen, amateur though it was: Jennifer’s jab was developing into an actual threat, and Theresa ducking under her cross was brilliant. Simone joked about Theresa’s kicking prowess before Jamila grabbed Theresa away.

“So you know that part at the end where you had your legs around her?” Jamila exclaimed. “That's good! That's guard! That's Jiu Jitsu! I can show you what to do next; you can actually win the fight from down there next time.”

“Wait, I can win while I'm on my back? Like how?”

“Choke her unconscious! Threaten to break her arm! Get creative. Come to Binary Star and I’ll show you myself.” The excited grappler offered.

“That's Simone’s gym right? I think she mentioned it.” Theresa’s eyes were alight with possibility.

“Hell yeah! It's lit! There’s so much you can learn, Theresa. Come check us out!”

While they conversed excitedly, Jennifer's two mentors were congratulating her on how quickly she'd actually pulled off a takedown. Jennifer couldn't hide how much she'd enjoyed the feeling of being on top of another woman, raining down punches. It was different than anything she felt while boxing.

Rebecca commented on her strength, or lack there off, and the freckled brunette agreed; maybe this would be the thing to get her in the gym for something else besides yoga and cardio…

The only woman unimpressed by their showing made her opinions clear to the rest of the cage’s occupants. Mary Ramirez wasn't one for tact or softened sentiments: the two girls looked new, green, clumsy. Why try to learn all the facets of some new endeavor when they had barely scratched the surface of boxing? As far as Mary was concerned, MMA was a fad, a sideshow to give talentless sluts like Kelsey something to do. The surly Latina made sure to call out her mentee Theresa for her sad attempt at grappling and her bouncy new stance.

“You box right?....” Simone asked her, trailing off when she realized she didn't know this new woman’s name.

“Mary. Mary Guadalupe De La Cruz Sanchez Ramirez” the boxer recited proudly. “And yes, I fucking box. Who the hell are you supposed to be?” Mary stepped to Simone, a mere inches from her face and looked her in the eyes. The young black woman let a wide smile blossom on her face. Theresa watched the staredown horrified that a fight might break out here and now while Kelsey rolled her eyes at Mary’s hyper-aggressive machismo.

“I'm the only one here the world cares about, lowkey. I'm the problem everyone’s tryna solve. I'm not the plug but I am handing out that work. I knock women out, professionally. I'm Simone Waterson. If you don't know, you prolly don't matter.” Simone beamed, clearly enjoying herself. “You talk a lot of shit, Mary, about boxing and the real way to fight. Well I don't wrestle; I'm a kickboxer. Put up or shut up. Come catch these hands, same day delivery.”

“Pause. Hold up, Simone” Her bespectacled training partner stepped between them, a light in her brown eyes. “Let's you and me go a round then.” Jamila offered to the muscular boxer. Mary had a few inches on her but was significantly shorter, thicker than Kelsey was, and Jazz already had a plan for the fight building in her head. “I don't get a chance to work with boxers like you often, and I'm curious. Besides, there's way more to Jiu Jitsu than just laying on people.”

“Bring it, fatass. You wouldn't last a round. And then afterwards you can call the coast guard to roll you out of my gym and back into the ocean…” Mary challenged, never one to refuse a fight.

“Ehh, Rebecca ran her mouth too. She said basically the same thing and somehow ended up unconscious.” Jamila shrugged. ”So I'm not gonna worry too hard. But I will give you this: if you're looking for someone to rub your ass and nibble on your ear, I'm the wrong one. I'm more of a ‘punch you in the face and bend your arms in ways they shouldn't,’ kinda girl. But I’m nice, and I’m nice with it, and I'll let you know when to tap out to avoid serious injury.” Jamila pushed her glasses up her face and began stretching in preparation for another training session.

“Ha, so you're a warrior. None of this softcore shit. I can respect that. I'm still gonna lay you out, but I'll respect you while I'm doing it.” The aggressive pugilist grinned like a knife while she slid on her MMA gloves.

The next session had officially been decided. Maybe these fighters Rebecca had mentioned might provide some fun after all…

---

#Writing #Series #FeintingSpells #Fiction #Action #Fight #MartialArts

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Early November, That Year

---

Thursday arrived like a hungry predator, looming over Simone until it finally descended on her. Jamila Hayes and Simone Waterson stood in an unfamiliar gym’s lobby, bags strapped over their shoulders. Simone had seen it once; the same gym where Theresa and Jennifer rumbled for the first time, where Rebecca seemed to derive a lurid pleasure from beating up an overmatched kickboxer. It didn’t seem so shady midday on a weekday. The bald, scruffy guy by the front desk appraised them warily but relented when a thin brunette waved him off and called out Simone’s name.

“You’re Simone, right?” she inquired as she approached. Simone couldn't tell at first glance whether she was white or Asian, but she was thin, with freckles and a earnest smile. The woman wore an oversized sweater, her bra visible beneath, and yoga pants. Simone nodded in response. “I'm Kelsey, I'm Rebecca’s friend. Glad you showed up!” the woman said as she led the pair through the gym.

Simone merely nodded again, her body tense, hostile.

“And you are…?” Kelsey inquired of Jamila, cocking her head to the side and touching a finger to her chin.

“Jamila. Simone’s big sister,” the curvy fighter said with considerably more warmth than Simone displayed.

“Oh?” Kelsey exclaimed as she clapped her hands together with delight, “I didn't know you had a sister. Do you train too?”

“Yeah I train,” Jamila said, motioning towards her bag, “but we’re not really sisters, more like close friends.”

“Oh.” Kelsey admitted flatly. “That's cool too. Well, we're all in the back by the cage,” She pointed towards the rear of the gym. ”But the lockers are over there if you need to change. It's only a few of us; just hop in the cage when you're ready.” The young woman said sweetly, leaving the two Binary Star gym members behind.

Jamila and Simone exchanged knowing looks before heading towards the women's locker room.

---

10 minutes later the two black women emerged, ready to train. Simone recognized only a few of the women standing or sitting in the cage: Theresa, Jennifer, and Rebecca from college, Kelsey from 15 minutes ago. The remaining few were strangers to her.

“Sorry to keep y'all waiting.” Simone announced. She slid her MMA gloves on, one red, one yellow, and her shin pads on before stepping up to cage and opening the door. Jamila slid into the cage behind her, wary smile on her face.

“You certainly took your sweet time,” Rebecca mocked, “Here I was thinking you weren't gonna show up.” She stretched and preened in the middle of the cage, her golden hair spilling down her back in a high ponytail. Rebecca wore a skimpy pair of black bikini bottoms, a bright, multicolored, sleeveless, crop top rash guard with an inexplicable cleavage window, and baby blue MMA gloves and thin shin guards. Simone rolled her eyes hard at the mere sight of her.

“Or nah. I got no problem doing a… what, a self defense demo for you and your… sorority? women's lacrosse team? lesbian coven?” Simone countered. “Besides, we can discuss what this costs you later.”

Jamila’s smile intensified; she was glad to see some of what they'd talked about was still on Simone’s mind. She hoped this would be clean and simple but doubted it. Simone’s mouth had a way of complicating things…

“So let's get started, hoes!” Simone said with a self satisfied chuckle. Her Muay Thai shorts were, short, loose, and bright red with white trim and designs, a simple white sports bra peeking out beneath her bright yellow t-shirt, the sleeves and most of the sides cut out.

Jamila’s gear was… conservative by comparison: a short sleeve purple and blue grappling rash guard shirt and a pair of loose white shorts that came down to her knees. Her gloves were a cheery shade of blue.

“Sooo… who here has any sort of kickboxing or MMA or wrestling experience?” Simone began, obviously surprised when every hand in the cage went up, some clearly reluctantly. “Gahdamn,” she muttered before Jamila elbowed her in the ribs. “Alright then, this will be a lot more fun…” she said with fire in her eyes as she shadow boxed a simple punch kick combination.

---

20 minutes into this … training session, and Rebecca Myers was soundly, completely bored. Learning basic kickboxing from some plucky 19 year old was not how she planned to spend today. She stopped mid strike and loudly, visibly yawned in Simone’s direction.

“You bored, Malibu?” Simone asked, an edge to her voice.

“Well duh. I thought you'd show us something actually interesting, but all you have are boring pretend combos that don't work in real life.” Rebecca stretched her shoulders. “I mean, that would never work on me.” She cooed.

Simone chortled derisively. “C'mon yo, let's not get ahead of ourselves. I’ve seen you fight; the next kick you check will be your very first…” Simone condescended.

“Then show me. For real. None of this ‘punching the air’ stuff” Rebecca refused to back down.

“It's called shadow boxing.”

“It's useless…” Rebecca scoffed, whipping her golden hair. By now disgruntled rumbles were spreading through the crowd of women like wildfire. Simone looked around nervously, wondering how her mom kept a room's attention. This was harder than she'd expected.

“It's how you improve.” Simone insisted. “It's how you motherf—“

“Then show me.” Rebecca demanded, striding up to Simone. “Show me how useful it is. Let's spar. You and me, full contact. Show me these that all of this,” she gestured elaborately, “works in real life. Put me in my place if you're such a good fighter.” Rebecca smirked.

Jamila’s eyes widened. This was where a bad idea became a terrible one. She reached out to Simone just in time you hear the talented striker acquiesce.

“Fuck it. Let’s get it, Malibu Barbie. Don't say I didn't warn you”

Rebecca glanced at Kelsey, who returned her knowing grin, before smiling as sweetly as she could at the black underclassman.

-Sparring round 1- -Simone vs Rebecca-

“Last chance to back out; don't get lit up in front of your lil' pale ass friends, Barbie.” Simone rubbed her palms on her shorts, surprised at how much she sounded like her mom.

“You hear that, Kelsey? Simone Waterson’s gonna TOTALLY kick my ass!” Rebecca called out to the freckled Asian woman they’d met before. Rebecca Meyers’ ring attire consisted of bright blue MMA gloves, a sleeveless crop top rash guard with a noticeable cleavage window and a pair of black, skimpy bikini bottoms. She looked more suited for a surfboard commercial than a fight, and proud of it.

The two women circled tentatively while the other young ladies looked on in rapt attention.

Rebecca broke the holding pattern first, charging forward, fists pumping. Simone hesitated, then slid away just in time, tagging Rebecca with a jab. It looked… haphazard.

Jamila grimaced; the legendary “Sleepy Simone” had resurfaced: it was well known around the Binary Star gym that when Simone sparred, she often spent the first round or two in a lethargic haze. Here she was again, at the exact worst time.

Rebecca came at an angle now, expecting Simone to slide away. The blonde caught her this time, pulled her into a clinch. Simone squirmed, absorbed some punishment, and showed very little in the way of interested aggression. “Still waiting for you to show me something, Simone.” The college senior taunted loud enough for some of the other girls to hear. “Just wait.” Came the reply.

Rebecca shifted her grip: beating Simone up in the clinch was nice, but taking the fight to the mat would let her have some real fun. She imagined sitting on Simone, straddling her hips, pummeling her, showing everyone what real talent looked like. But when she moved to pull Simone to the ground she found the sophomore moved with her, preventing the takedown. They jostled there for a moment, Rebecca's arms wrapped around her, Simone lethargically trying to decouple herself.

A sudden shift and Simone was free and backpedaling, hands tight in her guard. Jamila worried as she sat and watched them: Simone should be hitting her, discouraging Rebecca’s grappling attempts. Instead Jamila watched as the sturdy blonde woman bullied her way in past Simone’s token strikes, grabbed a hold of the suddenly timid pro, and then hurt her before Simone slipped away in seeming slow motion with Rebecca in hot pursuit to repeat the process.

Simone looked…. Really bad. Scared. Timid. Lethargic… Sleepy.

This time there was no timely escape. Instead, the cage shook as the women crashed onto the mat, sending a few of the observers scrambling to get out of their way. Simone looked like she might scramble away even from that until Rebecca pushed her flat onto her back and held her down firmly.

Simone wrapped a free leg around Rebecca’s waist; if she couldn't disengage and stand up, the next matter of business was to prevent anything worse from happening down here on the ground…

Rebecca wanted the exact opposite thing: to straddle Simone and rain down pain and panic and humiliation on this so-called professional fighter; professional fraud was more like it, and Rebecca took pleasure in telling her, showing her.

20 seconds later and the Orange County native had defeated Simone’s half guard through sheer attrition and force. Simone bucked wildly and to no avail, unable to dismount her rider. The lascivious grappler made eye contact with someone in the cage as she licked her lips and purred. Jamila Hayes followed her gaze and found that thin brunette waif now holding a camera. The Caribbean American did her best to innocuously shuffle between the camera and the fighters, yelling grappling advice the whole time.

Simone could thank her later.

in the meantime Rebecca finally straddled the athletic black woman and prepared to have her way with Simone when she felt an urgent tapping on her calf, like a Morse code message. It broke her concentration enough for the Orange County native to recognize the meek, “Nah. No thanks,” coming from her victim.

“Wait what?” Rebecca was incredulous, bemused, incensed. This was her moment. How dare anyone steal it, let alone the insipid sophomore trash beneath her.

“Sooo, you got me. Good shit. Grappling is still dumb as fuck. Fuck all that shit, nahmean? You finna let me up now or nah?” Simone deadpanned.

Rebecca hesitated for a moment then rose off her without another word, save a muttered expletive. Simone rolled backwards, away from her attacker and onto her feet before shrugging and resuming some sort of fighting stance.

For her part, the salacious blonde kept her hands on her hips and stared daggers at the sophomore physics major. “What?” Rebecca asked tensely.

“The bell didn't ring yet. Let’s run it back; I think I figured something out but I wanna test it. I mean, we sparring, or nah?”

Rebecca’s discontent and disappointment bled through into her expression: she’d thoroughly trounced this stupid girl and now Simone wanted to bounce around, wild eyed, like nothing had happened? The entire situation infuriated the wealthy Orange County princess. She grudgingly resumed her stance, took a deep breath and led with her familiar flurry.

Just like before, she caught Simone with a few glancing shots but absorbed a few in return before Simone escaped. But this time as Rebecca turned to relocate her prey she caught a shin into her side, her body jerking with the force of the impact.

Jamila cheered. She and Theresa might have been the only ones to do so. Most of the other women squealed in shock at the sound of the kick.

Rebecca backed off this time, blinked away the pain and tried again. The next time around she absorbed a thudding knee before she put her hands on Simone, grabbed an ankle and a knee and downed her quarry again as the professional MMA fighter grunted in anguish. Rebecca leaned her full bodyweight on Simone this time, driving an elbow into her and watching the impertinent pugilist squirm. “Don't fight it. You know you like it.. I promise you'll enjoy it if you just admit it,” she cooed to the struggling co-ed as she alternated between pounding on Simone with her free hand and rubbing the woman's torso and thigh.

“Thot!” Simone spat back impotently.

“Oh, don't tell me this doesn’t get you a little excited… isn’t that why they call you Slick?”

Simone just groaned in contempt and rolled her eyes and redoubled her efforts to escape or threaten Rebecca with some kind of submission attempt. Anything besides lay here and absorb this abuse. But Rebecca laid on her like an abusive wet blanket, or the most uncomfortable snuggling session ever, and disentangling herself was a puzzle piece Simone hadn’t yet found.

This feels right. Rebecca decided, smiling wickedly as the buzzer sounded, signaling the end of the five minute round. She held the girl down for a few more moments, one forearm lodged painfully below her ribs, the other hand rubbing Simone’s leg. Simone jerked away, rolled over and stood up on shaky legs while the victorious Rebecca preened for the rest of the girls

That couldn't have gone worse.

Simone realized that had she not tapped out, Rebecca absolutely would have tried to rearrange her face.

During a training session

And suddenly the 3-0 professional realized just why she’d been invited here: This was a setup. Rebecca knew a lot more about her than she let on. And now Simone was equal parts furious and embarrassed. She pondered what the fuck even to do until a familiar arm wrapped around her back and Jamila’s voice said, “You awake yet, Sleepy? Take a breath, sit down, think. It’s a jam session, not a concert.”

Simone nodded soundlessly and trudged off to go slump against the wall of the cage, rumination clear on her face. Jamila could still here her muttering about how stupid grappling was. That was normal for Simone though: between rounds with Jamila and Kristine at their home gym, Simone probably made that face 5 or 6 times a week.

In the meantime… “Hey, let’s roll…” Jamila cleared her throat and announced at the gaggle of women.

“Excuse me?” Rebecca asked, not even bothering to turn and face her.

“Let’s roll? Like, let’s spar? I didn’t quite catch your name” The Caribbean Jiu Jitsu expert strode up and offered her hand.

“Who even are you?” Rebecca inquired dismissively.

Jamila sighed. “I'm Jamila. Jam Session. I train at the same gym as Simone.”

“Are you a total loser like she is?” Rebecca taunted.

“I unno,” Jamila chuckled and shrugged, “Maybe? Prolly? I'm probably not as good as she is, being fucking honest,” Jam continued, interrupting Rebecca to finish her point. “Which is why it's gonna be super awkward when I submit you like twice, you know.” The Caribbean submission grappler smiled earnestly, sweetly, and pushed her glasses up her face. “Just, I imagine it'll be kinda embarrassing and shit…”

-Sparring round 2- -Jamila vs Rebecca-

Rebecca’s eyes narrowed, as did Kelsey’s, who stood nearby. “Alright then Jamiqua, or whatever your name is. I’ll humor you.” Rebecca adjusted the straps of her fingerless gloves. “My name is Rebecca. And after I get through kicking your ass, I want you two losers to get the hell out of my gym. Understand?” She signaled to a brunette with green highlights to restart the timer.

The curvy, bespectacled fighter looked up at her new sparring partner and giggled. She removed her glasses and tossed them in Simone’s direction. “Oh f'sho, that's cool; what about when you lose?”

“I don't.” Rebecca affirmed as they circled.

The blonde beachgoer pressured again, arms pumping, but where Simone had hit and run, Jamilia moved towards her, arms up. Rebecca had no real reach advantage over Simone but this nerd was barely tall enough to sit at the grownups table and Rebecca intended to embarrass her in as many ways as she could fit into a 5 minute round.

That spiteful plan began to fray when Jamila instead caught her with a sharp punch followed by the same kick Simone had demonstrated earlier. Rebecca recoiled and reset, only now realizing that the woman with the headband full of wild black curls was a left-handed fighter, a filthy southpaw. They approached again, both looking to come forward and trade strikes. They repeated this joust a few times until the two locked up in the middle of the cage, gripping and grasping each other. They pulled on each other, exchanging short strikes, neither willing to give an inch.

---

Elsewhere in the cage

“Simone, you ok?” A young woman inquired suddenly rousing Simone from her feverish muttering and gesturing.

“Oh damn… hey Theresa. I'm fine, just thinking.”

“About?”

“How much fun I'm about to have…” Simone said, smiling like a knife.

Theresa’s confusion was painted on her face.

“I'm going to spar with her again.” Simone declared. “I think I figured out a few things. This will be fun. I'm honestly enjoying this: getting roughed up in a sparring session is normal. It's not a real fight and I'm not here to look tough. I admit, her actually trying to rearrange my face is rude as fuck, but sure, I got something for her for next time…”

“It sounds a lil scary when you say it like that.” The nascent boxer confided.

“Nah, just take it easy and have fun and try things. It’s training: It's not meant to look perfect, it's supposed to be helpful…” Simone smiled wildly as she watched, pounding her gloves together.

---

Rebecca was quickly growing incensed; this impertinent meatball insisted on thwarting her plans at every step. Where she normally put her hands wherever she wanted, Jamila swept them away and grabbed her, hit her instead. Where Rebecca usually easily found leverage, this woman pushed and pulled and struggled, matching and countering her movements. They hugged tightly there in the cage, limbs writhing around each other. “High-key, I thought you’d be better at this.” Jamila admitted. “Not sure what I was afraid of.”

“I'm going to literally mop the floor with you. Just watch.” Rebecca assured her.

With a feint and a final effort Rebecca brought the fight to the floor on her terms, landing on top of her opponent as they fell. But even then this stubby grappler had frustrated her: as Rebecca drove her to the floor, Jamila wrapped her legs around Rebecca’s waist and squeezed. Now that vicegrip prevented the OC native from doing much of anything else, be it punch or even try and stand back up. The full guard position was living up to its name.

The two women found themselves in a holding pattern: Rebecca intent on improving her position in order to better punch Jamila while the submission expert looked to reverse their positions or employ some fancy exotic technique. The next moment might decide this whole round, and waiting for her moment was a concept near and dear to the Caribbean grappler.

Rebecca ran out of patience first and pushed, leaned, shoved. Jamila’s reaction flipped them both over. A sweep from full guard to mount. Where Rebecca had been on top, looking to turn a small advantage into a big one, now Jamila found herself on top and thoroughly in control of the situation.

“So… you wanna tap now or…?” Jamila inquired.

“Get bent, loser.” Rebecca spat back, planning her escape.

Jamila smiled, shrugged and promptly began hitting the near defenseless Rebecca in the face. Being on the receiving end of this abuse was uncommon for her. The crowded cage went silent aside from Simone’s muffled laughter.

Rebecca made a valiant effort to escape but only succeeded in turning over and exposing her back to the submission grappler, who instantly took advantage. Jamila’s heels dug into Rebecca's thighs and her arms constricted around Rebecca's neck and head.

The result was a simple rear naked choke: The one submission everyone in the gym could recognize.

“So, I told you I was gonna submit you, and here we are. Tap or nap.” Jamila offered flatly, calmly.

All Rebecca could muster was indignation. This was unthinkable. She struggled, kicked, flailed, and when that failed, lost consciousness entirely. Jamila let go as soon as the taller girl went limp.

“Well… ok. I didn't expect her to choose ‘nap.’ Gahdamn…that’s wild as hell.” Jamila muttered.

She rolled away, stood, shrugged, and stared at the other girls, Kelsey especially. The slender woman glowered back at her but said nothing, instead stepping past Jazz to go aid the unconscious wrestler. Rebecca Meyers roused quickly from her unintended nap, too furious to be embarrassed. Kelsey shushed her, calmed her, helped her stand.

A phone alarm blared out the end of the five minute round. Kelsey conferred with her groggy friend, asked where Mary was a little louder than she’d intended, and finally turned to face this chubby interloper. She stretched out a little more rather than take up a stance immediately

“This is a gym, ostensibly. The yoga studio is down the street.” Simone jeered from her seat in the corner.

The Asian American woman didn't acknowledge Simone at all, instead addressing the woman in middle of the cage. “That wasn’t very nice, Jamila. I mean, sure, Rebecca’s prideful, and kind of a bitch sometimes, but choking her unconscious was excessive.”

Kelsey sighed loudly. “I guess if you insist on deviating from the script, then it’s up to me to rewrite the ending. The show must go on, after all.” Her eyes narrowed at Jamila.

“I just wanted someone to roll with. You two are the ones turning this into some life and death power play…” The young black woman countered. “If you get caught with something… tap out. Learn from it.” She shrugged.

The two began their clash as soon as the alarm rang out.

-Sparring round 3- -Jamila vs Kelsey-

Where Rebecca had charged at her, Jamila found this new women lashing out with long strikes like a lion tamer’s whip. Kelsey committed to maintaining the distance between them and keeping herself away from the walls of the cage. Jamila dove in, eager to stay near the slender martial artist, only for Kelsey to clip her with an arcing hook that briefly made Jamila’s eyes water.

After catching another fist to the cheek and a spinning kick to her ribs shortly after, Jamila wavered cautiously at the edge of Kelsey's range, looking uneasy and uncertain. This was the worst double-dutch session ever. When she sparred with Simone at their gym Simone bounced around at a preferred range and rhythm for her punches and kicks. By contrast this woman seemed to be perpetually moving away from her, working at odd timing, never hitting Jamila until she committed to something, to the wrong thing…

“That's it Kelsey, she's scared!” Rebecca cheered.

“Yo Jazz, she's only circling to her left! And you have to eventually check a kick, please.” Simone countered.

All Jamila wanted was to get close and stay there, to work on her technique, to have and to hold this woman, to bend and fold her in familiar and uncomfortable ways. All she needed was to close the distance. And she could do that in a single burst, if she could just get Kelsey to stop running away. She’d succeeded only in short spurts so far.

Kelsey glided around the ring, taunting and tagging Jamila. “Come on, come get me. I hope you're having as much fun as I am!” Where Mary seemed to enjoy the concept of violence, of the simple act of causing pain, and Rebecca seemed fixated on dominating the people around her like a monarch, treating them as pawns for her immediate amusement, Kelsey Liao just wanted to put on a show. The performance was the important part; fighting was just a means to end. The hard part was finding a worthy costar: it certainly wasn’t her fault that she made a better leading lady than basically everyone she shared the ring or cage with. Most of them weren’t bad people, they were simply boring, underwhelming sluggers who couldn’t entertain a crowd if you gave them written directions beforehand. Unfortunately, most of the women she performed with needed to be beaten or cajoled into playing their role as second fiddle, but most of them came around eventually. Jamila seemed like a decently smart woman; she’d figure it out eventually.

Jamila had done her best to back the brunette towards a wall of the cage. Kelsey lashed out again and this time Jamila blocked most of it before landing with a combination of her own. Now she leaned away from an incoming blow and dashed in. Jamila brought her knee up to her waist and let Kelsey’s leg crash into her shin instead of anything soft or vulnerable. A textbook checked kick. Kelsey recoiled in pain and lashed out with another spinning kick. This one Jamila trapped between her arm and her body, keeping Kelsey close.

She slid forward, still holding the brunette’s leg, and punched her once, twice, three times as Kelsey hopped awkwardly, desperate to free herself. Then the violent thespian leaped unexpectedly towards Jamila. The impending collision caught the Brazilian Jiu Jitsu ace square in the chest and she promptly let go of Kelsey’s foot. The ensuing scramble saw the freckled brunette slide behind Jamila, trapping her wrist behind her back. Kelsey pulled painfully on her arm and leaned closer to her ear.

“Sorry, but I'm the star of this play. Don't hate me, alright?” Kelsey whispered.

“Uhhh… what?” Jamila stammered.

“Just go with it.” Kelsey said sweetly, planting a kiss on Jamila's neck and rubbing her bosom. The rest of the girls blushed and giggled as Jamila struggled to break free. Kelsey wrapped a leg around Jamilla’s and leaned back. The result was a thoroughly unpleasant, uninvited ab stretch for Jamila. Once again, Kelsey’s free hand seductively traced the contours of her opponent’s body, to the excitement of the crowd. “Do you give up, Jamila?” Kelsey asked loudly, looking from the grimacing grappler to the few women watching from corners of the cage.

“This… isn’t wrestling” Jamila grunted in protest.

“There’s more than one way to win a fight” Kelsey Liao teased, her voice low enough for only the two of them to hear. “Play nice or everyone here it’s gonna know what your ‘O’ face looks like”

This time Jamaila yelled a regional pejorative at the pale, freckled wrestler while she worked her way free of the painful, frankly embarrassing hold. She recognized the way it worked, but not exactly how the other girl had secured it. Kelsey pushed her away before she fully disentangled herself and Jamila stumbled forward, barely staying upright and still facing away from her opponent. Jamila Hayes received only a brief reprieve before she fell backwards, literally head over heels as her back crashed against the mat.

Limbs wrapping around her legs, some sort of back trip takedown. These concepts made sense in Jiu Jitsu. Jamaila knew them, used them. So why did everything else feel so… off? Like only recognizing some of the words in a new language. Just… everything almost made sense about the way Kelsey grappled, but that ‘almost’ was the frustrating part.

In any event she had new problems. As soon as she’d recognized the trip she’d curled into a ball, both for her own safety and to frustrate whatever Kelsey had planned next. Now she found both of Kelsey’s arms wrapped around one of her legs and both of Kelsey’s legs snaked around her remaining one. Kelsey had rolled her up on her upper back, denying her much leverage. This was bad. Like a crucifix hold, but on her legs? A kneebar would have made sense to her, or a heel hook, dangerous as that was. This wasn’t Jiu Jitsu. This was something else entirely.

“Can you hear me down there?” Kelsey inquired.

Jamila stopped and paused, thought, breathed. Bodies moved a certain way. There was a way out of most things. If not, you tapped out. Just had to find out which this was.

“This is probably pretty embarrassing, so… you should tap out now, but I totally could understand if you don’t want to.” Kelsey teased.

“So you're a wrestler then?” Jamila inquired.

“No, Rebecca’s a wrestler. I'm a performer.” Kelsey protested.

“No, Rebecca’s a grappler. You're some kind of pro wrestler or something.” The young black woman offered.

Kelsey had succeeded in almost fully extending her legs, splitting them wide open and giving the audience a full view of her. Jamaila was thankful she’d worn the baggy shorts today. She relaxed her legs rather than exhaust her muscles and thought about her next move.

Then she felt Kelsey’s fingers along her knee, then along the inside of her thigh, and then further up, and then… no. Nope. This was absolutely not what she had in mind when Simone asked her to accompany her to a sparring session.

“How’s that feel? You like that? They sure do.” Kelsey cooed.

“Oh… no thanks, I’m not here for that.” Jamila deadpanned as she tapped the mat and signaled her submission. This had quickly gone from interesting to sexual and she had no desire to explore that mix. What Kelsey did for a fight was between her and whoever paid her, but Jamila had no intention of mixing foreplay into her grappling.

Kelsey rubbed her once more, harder this time, before uncoupling her limbs and rolling away. Jamila’s legs crashed unceremoniously onto the mat and she lay there, sweaty and spread eagle for a few moments before rolling over onto her knees to think. She took a few more moments to think and stand up and resume her stance and called out to resume their session, but the phone alarm they’d been using as a bell rang out, precluding any more action.

Relieved, Jamila slumped against a nearby cage wall, sweaty and confused and tired of people. Thankfully, the next face she saw was the woman she’d walked through the door with.

“You a’ight?” Simone inquired, concern etched on her young face.

“I… nah. The fuck was that?” She gasped

“Some sexy wrestling type shit. Looked kinda cool, at least until she starting trying to finger you. I ain’t think you could do that in a MMA fight. You… good Jazz?”

“You can’t do that in a fight!” Jamila yelled, flustered. “I… Nah, I need a moment. What you wanna do? We leaving?” Simone handed her glasses back and Jamila blinked a few times as distant objects suddenly came into focus. Simone’s smile was sharp, eager. Jamila imagined she looked a hot mess. She checked her headband and giant kinky poof of her it restrained. Sometimes she really regretted not twisting it up into braids or locks like the Waterson women did.

“Oh hell nah; I’m gonna ruin Namaste’s life right now This shit finna be crucial, Jazz.”

“You sold those same tickets before Rebecca lit you up. You sure you’re awake this time, Simone?”

“Trust, I got this Jazz. It's about to be lit”

“Go 'head then.” Jamaila acquiesced as Simone strode confidently towards the slender wrestler and her friends.

-Sparring round 4- -Simone vs Kelsey-

“Yo, Namaste! Let’s get it. I wanna try you out; that was mad interesting.” Simone beamed, red and yellow gloves at the ready.

Kelsey took a long sip from a water bottle before acknowledging her. “It's Kelsey, not Namaste. I’m not looking for a squash match, and I don’t think they’re interested in watching one, sorry.”

Simone paused at the unfamiliar terminology. “Aww, don’t be like that; I’ll go easy on you if you’re scared. But I’m tryna check out some of that sexy wrestling stuff you do.” Her expression suggested she knew what Kelsey had implied and instead chose to ignore it. “ I wanna know if you got all that lesbian wrestling stuff from Rebecca, or did she get if from you, or did you both go to the same sex wrestling summer camp...”

“I’m just giving the fans what they want.” Kelsey remarked innocently.

“-Or is there some sort of lesbian wrestling matriarch, like a final boss you both report to or…” Simone continued.

“Simone right? Fine. I’ll humor you. But promise not to tap as fast as you or your fat friend did last time, alright?” Kelsey put a hand on her forehead.

Simone watched Jennifer tap away on her phone and caught Theresa sliding next to Jamaila in the corner of her eye. She hoped Jamila wouldn’t snap at her: Theresa still had a habit of pestering introverts. Then she saw Kelsey put her mouthpiece in and resume that awkward, swaying stance she’d beat Jamila around the cage with.

This promised to be a lot of fun.

They circled until it became clear that Kelsey had no intention of leading their dance. Simone advanced, throwing long, noncommittal punches and kicks, watching Kelsey sway and evade and tentatively fire back.

---

Elsewhere in the cage

Jamila looked on inquisitively: Simone looked so much more comfortable than she had against Rebecca. Her loose ponytail of black braids bobbed up and down as she hovered there in front of Kelsey. Where Jamila had recalled feeling always too far away, Simone reached out and tagged Kelsey with a jab. When Simone looked good she looked effortless.

The two women looked evenly matched: Simone approaching, Kelsey responding and shuffling, clearly preferring to fight at the outer edge of her range.

It was the first normal sparring round they'd had all day.

---

“I really thought you’d be better than this,” Kelsey admitted as she back pedaled.

“I got a question for you.” Simone countered.”

Kelsey merely raised her eyebrows in response.

“How do you deal when the other girl has a hand speed advantage? Like, what do you do about that?”

Kelsey smirked. “You're kidding, right? You're asking now? You should have thought about that before we started.”

Simone dropped her hands and laughed aloud as Kelsey circled away. “Nah, I'm good. I’ve never had that problem in my whole life. I was legit wondering how all you regular hoes deal with it.” She kept her hands low as she advanced this time.

Kelsey glared at the impudent sophomore and fired again, a familiar jab-cross and a peculiar kick thrown with her lead leg, not the rear leg. Simone recognized it only from TV, and had painfully absorbed a few of them here while developing a countermeasure. Now, no sooner had Kelsey put her foot down than Simone had bitten into that calf with a scything kick.

The sound reverberated throughout the cage and Kelsey winced. The college senior retreated and tried the same combo again as Simone approached, to the same painful result. As Simone approached again Kelsey lashed out with strikes meant to reestablish distance and deny close engagement. Simone parried most of them, stepped in and scored with several strikes, including a another kick to that same lead leg. Kelsey scored with a left hook but took a knee to the body for her trouble and circled away

---

elsewhere in the cage

Theresa Bayan could scarcely believe the change she was seeing, much less the finer points of “why.”

Simone was clearly winning this, and as Theresa sat there next to Simone’s friend from her gym she struggled not to ask her for a play by play. The woman had introduced herself tersely as “Jam” before ignoring her entirely. But Theresa had so many questions and no one to answer them. She and her roommate had talked only briefly since they'd arrived, and now Jennifer was acting as their timer for rounds. Jennifer looked happy with her new friends, but Rebecca always seemed so much less excited to talk to Theresa. She wondered why before a flash of action and sound drew her attention back to the two fighters.

---

“Wanna try that again, Kelsey?” Simone held her stance for a moment before offering a gloved hand to her wiry sparring partner. Kelsey leaned by the cage wall, one knee on the mat. She clutched her face with one hand and steadied herself with another. Her fair complexion made obvious the small welt forming under her eye. She stared at Simone's yellow glove, at her, before accepting the help up. “What… was that?” she asked the young kickboxer.

Simone clapped her two different colored gloves together and smiled. “You were looking for a left hook. So I made you think it was coming and then using that pivot to deliver this right hand and punch you in the mouth. Surprise!”

“Yeah, that part I remember. But…”

“I’ll show you.”

“Don't slow it down on my account” Kelsey shook her head and adjusted her mouthpiece. “Let's just try again. I still intend on giving them a show.”

“Nah, this is a rehearsal.” Simone challenged. “But you still haven't shown me any of that sexy wrestling stuff. What happened, girl?”

They resumed their sparring session, Kelsey moving around the cage a little slower, her alabaster calf beginning to turn red from absorbed repeated kicks.

This time when Simone approached she nearly impaled herself on an outstretched foot. As she grimaced and recoiled, Kelsey followed with a leaping, spinning kick that a wide eyed Simone only barely avoided the full brunt of. The lanky striker still had some life in her yet.

So it's like that?

Kelsey bounced in her stance and waved Simone in. The younger woman took the invitation and pursed Kelsey around the cage before backing her near a wall. They traded again in a flash of action until Simone swayed out of the path of an incoming blow and responded with an open palm slap that brought their session to a halt

“Wait, what? Did you just slap me?” Kelsey asked incredulously. She clutched her face.

“Hell yeah.” Simone said, beaming. “It's a lil part of my strategy. People haaaaate it.”

“It's super disrespectful.”

“I know, right? It’s great.”

“I bet the crowd gets a kick out of it.” Kelsey mused. They resumed their stances only for a moment before the alarm went off. Simone reached out and hugged her sparring partner, whispered a word of thanks as they separated. The lanky striker nodded in response as they went to opposite ends of the cage.

“How do you make that look so easy?” Jamila pondered facetiously.

“People have habits. I like watching people. And I got a feel for her watching you chase her around the cage.” Simone smiled.

“Happy to help, Slick.” Jamila deadpanned, pushing her glasses up her face. “This chick let me get halfway fingered so she can look good punching a wrestler in the face. That's teamwork right there. Lovely.”

“Just like I softened Rebecca up for you. Sleepy Simone at your service.” Simone countered, sticking her tongue out. “You're welcome.”

“Thanks, Simone. Thank you so much. Now, we done here, or nah?”

“You’re leaving already?” Theresa interjected.

“Nah, not till I get that runback with Blondie over there. Now I'm motivated.” Simone answered them both.

Jamila shook her head; that wide eyed, grinning face meant Simone was fixated on a challenge and the rest of the world didn't exist until she solved it. This could take a while. And the longer they were here, the more likely this would end up on film and potentially on a screen Yolanda Waterson was watching. That would be the true worst case scenario…

---

Across the cage, Kelsey and Rebecca conferred in low voices. Jennifer McCowan swore she heard the name “Mary” a few times. Up until now she'd only heard it from Rebecca in passing. This session was intense. It was like a whole new world watching the more experienced girls go at it. Some of their sessions had been friendly, some definitely not. It was especially enlightening to see Kelsey and Rebecca in action. She'd worked with Kelsey since the lithe brunette had trained her for that ill-fated scrap with her roommate and found the woman to be nice, sensitive, kind, and even funny on occasion. Jennifer tried to recall Kelsey’s major: Theater or English or Dance. Something in that orbit. Rebecca on the other hand was like a cool older sister Jennifer wished she had. Rebecca was endlessly confident, talented, smart, and Jen wanted very badly to say something to her but couldn't find the words. When no one took center stage to start a new sparring session she settled for looking at her phone.

After what felt like forever the two seniors broke their huddle and Jennifer found her chance.

“So… Kelsey, that looked .... intense. Like, what's the difference fighting that first woman vs fighting Simone?”

Kelsey pondered a moment,. “…Jamila is good. She’s obviously talented, especially on the ground, like Rebecca found out. But Simone’s more creative, taller, faster. I think she and I could definitely entertain a crowd together…”

Rebecca was obviously displeased by that sentiment. “Jamila’s nothing special, and Simone’s an overhyped poser.”

“Except for the part where Jamila choked you unconscious without much effort.” Kelsey shot back with a wry smile.

“Shut up,” Rebecca groaned, half serious. She gave her friend a playful shove before Jennifer piped up again.

“So, Rebecca, can you show me some of that wrestling, grappling stuff? Like, I'm curious how it works, how you tackle people and then hold them down and hit them and stuff…”

Rebecca shared a knowing glance with Kelsey. “At least until Mary shows up, I guess.” Rebecca said before looking back to the eager young fighter. “Sure thing, Jen; I’ll show you as much as you want. Did you even bring gloves, though?”

“Yeah, just like you said.” Jennifer stammered, reaching down for her black MMA gloves.

“Awesome.” Rebecca said, leading the sophomore to the middle of the cage. “Then let's get started!”

---

#Writing #Series #FeintingSpells #Fiction #Action #Fight #MartialArts

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Late October, That Year

---

The familiar sound of leather striking leather rang out through the South LA gym in fierce bursts. A gym’s striking coach and its brightest prospect, a mother and her daughter. Two women at work.

Paff.

Paff paff paff.

Paff paff… paff.

Late mornings like this almost always found the gym empty; today especially so. No more than a handful of souls occupied the place. In the boxing ring, mother and daughter spoke in between the call and response of gloves and shin guards hitting training pads.

“Mom, you’re really gonna get Jazz a fight? Forreal? Like for real for real?” Simone stammered.

“I meant what I said.” Yolanda Waterson replied curtly as she fed her daughter a punch meant to be parried. “And besides, if I can convince ‘West Coast Warzone,’” the Waterson matriarch paused to visibly shudder at the name, “that she’s an actual live fighter with talent and a misleading record who's willing to fight, they'll be more likely to let you out of your contract early. I can think of a few reasons they'd want a ringer on the payroll.” A wry smile crept across her face.

Simone cocked her head to the side, letting her thin braids fall over her shoulders as she bobbed and swayed. “Like, isn't that kinda foul though? Making someone fight a girl where there's basically has no recent footage of her and attend way better than her record? That’d suck…”

“Yup. Exactly.” Mom replied with a smirk before barking out a new series of movements and strikes for daughter to perform. “Which is why if I pitch her that way, West Coast may let us end your contract without an argument.”

“Why's it so important I get out of this contract?” Simone asked as she drove her knee into a training pad.

“Because,” her mom paused for effect, doing her best to look nonchalant. “Dre said someone from Gladiator Championship Fights had called him about you: apparently they planned on sending a contract to whoever won your last fight.”

Daughter stopped mid-combo now. “Wait, my last fight? With Texas girl? Well, I put her to sleep so-“ Simone yelped as as she stopped to ponder and a thick leather Thai pad swung into her face.

“I didn't say stop,” mother said with a shrug before calling out a new pattern of strikes and movements. “But yeah, they sent over an offer. I saw it: it's got the right number of zeroes on it. It's official, Money, you’re headed to the major leagues.” She intentionally didn't give her daughter a chance to stop and process the news, instead moving right along into a new sequence.

“Wow. That's…” the college sophomore trailed off to strike the pads her mother held. “Sounds like fun. At least, I hope so. I’m looking forward to women with… I unno… more talent? Better fight plans?” She shrugged before stepping up and swinging her shin into the pad. “Fighting’s more fun when the competition’s better. Any idea who they'll ask me to fight first?”

“Keep slacking off and see how much fun this is. For real; you play too much, Simone, especially during fights. Show up. Win fast. Get paid.” All the humor drained from Yolanda’s voice and she glared at her daughter. “If you wanna play with these women then go train with them. But fight night is for real, and playing around is going to bite your ass eventually. I promise.” Her tone softened as she returned to happier news: “ Andre is betting it’s Terry Kim, the Tae Kwon Do one from ESPN. You remember? She finished the Olympics and turned pro and looks like she's forreal. They signed her what, last month? They haven't announced a fight for her yet. My money says it's you.”

Simone beamed. She remembered Tae Ri “Terri” Kim. The woman took silver at the Olympics the year before in a fairly controversial decision. Since then she'd been connected to a few different MMA organizations. A showdown with some TKD prodigy was exactly the kind of challenge that got her blood racing. She hit the training pads with a renewed fervor that her did not go unnoticed by her mom and striking coach.

“This is the big time, Simone. We're almost there; just don't do anything stupid, alright?”

---

“Yaaaas girl. He could… totally get it.” The young woman half announced, half admitted. She blushed, however, when the woman she was speaking to replied with a wide-eyed giggle. “Whaaat?” She protested, lightly pushing the woman.

“Nah, it's nothing, Theresa; just, I’ve never heard you say ‘yaaaas' before. It's cute. I fuck with it. Besides, it's funny hearing you talk about thotting it up. Go ahead and get yours, Theresa.”

The term ‘thot' made Theresa uneasy, especially when applied to her, and her face showed it. “I mean, that sounds so… bad though. So slutty… I'm just-“

“Doing what you want with who you want to. Sounds like a plan to me, Theresa.”

“Well when you say it like that, Simone, I guess it doesn't sound so bad…” Theresa’s voice trailed off. Simone resumed playfully interrogating her, frequently teasing her about Theresa’s conclusions. Guys, music, classes, and fighting, which Theresa was still reticent to openly discuss. It was weird, being in class with a professional fighter, and she said as much: Simone wasn't the musclebound barbarian Theresa would have described if you’d asked her to describe a professional fighter.

Across the room, Theresa’s roommate took off her earphones and put down her phone.

“Done with your writing, Jennifer?”

“Ugh… for now.” The Seattle native responded, stretching out her slender limbs. “I'll have to finish it eventually, but that's a problem for future Jennifer.” She joined giggling pair, sitting on her own bed, across from them. The cackling dup became a trio, swapping dreams and opinions as the crisp fall afternoon melted into the evening.

When the dorm room door slid open, the three sophomore women recalled that the deadbolt had been extended, but the door had been intentionally left open: the result was that the door looked closed but could be pushed open by whomever wanted to enter. Private but amenable to socializing. Now the three waited to see who the interloper might be. Only one of them expected their floor's tall, voluptuous, blonde RA to walk in, her smile bright and infectious.

“Heeey, ladies” Rebecca announced as she entered.

“Oh, h-hey ‘Becca.” Jennifer stammered as the senior let herself in. Theresa clutched a pillow and drew her knees up to her chest in an attempt to disappear as Rebecca grabbed a chair near the door and straddled it, the back of the chair nuzzling her chest. The senior Psychology major’s smile was infectious, disarming, and her halter top bared the brightly colored tattoo on her shoulder for all to see.

Simone stared warily at her; though Rebecca lacked the accoutrements of an RA tonight and her mannerisms read as warm and friendly, she couldn't shake the lingering resentment generated by their last encounter.

“Hey there… Simone, right? Fancy seeing you here again.”

“I know right? You too, officer Barbie” the black girl offered flatly.

“What are you ladies up to?” Rebecca said, ignoring Simone’s retort. She looked to Jennifer but ostensibly addressing the whole room.

“Music” “Boys” “Fighting”

Came the three simultaneous answers, a jumbled mess of a group response. Rebecca smiled, glad for the chance to skip the small talk and go for the jugular.

“Fighting eh? That's cool. What part?”

“Simone says that she’s gonna get a big new contract and fight all over the world.” Theresa interjected, physically blossoming as she spoke. “And so we were talking about that, and when Jennifer and i fought, and then she was telling us about your fight, Becca, since we didn't see it…”

Jennifer looked like she might contribute but thought better of it.

“Oh? And Jen, how are you feeling? You mentioned wanting to get back to training and I was hoping you'd stop by the gym. I could show you some things.” Rebecca still seemed to address only the sophomore with green streaks in her otherwise dark brown hair.

“That sounds super co-“

“Choking a guy out with your titties ain't exactly good Jiu Jitsu” Simone sneered. “I mean, Jen ain’t got the boobs to pull it off anyways..” Simone cackled but quickly turned silent when no one else laughed with her.

“Oh, I'm sure I've got plenty else I could teach her…” Rebecca said slyly, adjusting the baseball cap atop her messy blonde locks. “Hell, I could probably teach you a few things too, Slick.” She let Simone’s ring name roll off her tongue like a precocious child might in order to let everyone know she knew a new word.

Caustic indignance flashed across the face of the LA native. “So you know what they call me. You watched me fight, I hope, and you still think you got something to teach that doesn’t involve thotting it up in the ring?” She all but leapt off the bed. “With your goofy, Malibu Barbie ass? Nah, nah I’m not buying it.”

“Don’t be so sure, Slick.” Rebecca teased, tilting her head slightly, “I might surprise you. Worse yet, you might even thank me afterwards.” Her grin was more hungry than friendly, and she bit her lip seductively to drive home the point.

Jen stood up between them and said “Well, since you two are obviously like, real fighters, how about we all train together? I bet I could learn a lot from you both, right? I mean, I’ve never seen you go all out, Rebecca, and I’ve only seen Simone on YouTube.”

“Yeah, a group session sounds cool. I wanna kick bitches in the fucking face like Simone did.” Theresa added.

“Well hey, let's make a lil party out of it. I'll invite a few girls and reserve the cage and we can all do our thing. It'll be fun. Besides, I wanna see how wide the gap between lil old me and a big scary Pro fighter is…” Rebecca cooed, perfectly aware that she had to look down, albeit slightly, to look Simone in the eyes.

“Hell yeah. It's finna be lit. Imma enjoy that…” Simone glared.

Theresa and Jennifer exchanged nervous glances as the two fighters sized each other up.

“Umm, how about Thursday, 11am? Slick?” Rebecca offered with a ravenous grin. Simone agreed, then checked her phone, then agreed again. “Let's get it, Malibu.”

And with that clash scheduled, the tension in the room receded to non-murderous levels. The guests left, and the dorm room’s residents continued exchanging nervous glances.

“What the hell was THAT?” Jennifer exclaimed, gesturing to the door and back.

“I was gonna ask you, Jenn. Like, why did Rebecca keep egging her on?” the chubby Filipina asked.

“Why was Simone so aggro? Like, it looked like she wanted to fight right then and there! And what's with all the ‘Barbie’ stuff? Why can't she just call her ‘Rebecca’” The Seattle native fired back…

Meanwhile, their RA strolled down the hall with a satisfied grin. She fired off a text.

“It’s on. Thursday 11. Our place.”

---

A different text lit up the screen of Simone Waterson as she headed back to her dorm room. It was Theresa, sending her the address of the gym; in the heat of the moment, the Black student hadn't even confirmed the locale. That gave her pause.

Finally safe in the quiet of the dorm room she shared, Simone fired back a quick note of thanks, and then composed a plea of her own.

“Need your help, Jazz.”

“???” Was the reply.

“Come with me Thursday morning? A bitch mighta just did sumthing stupid..”

The reply took it's sweet time arriving, and Simone checked her phone again as if she could will a positive response out of the air. Finally, her phone buzzed again.

“I got u. Assume you're keeping the gym out of this?”

Simone groaned, replied in the affirmative, and then fell back on her bed….

---

#Writing #Series #FeintingSpells #Fiction #Action #Fight #MartialArts

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In the ramshackle city of Quetta, once a prosperous hub of economic activity, now more akin to a dilapidated frontier town because of the devastating earthquake of 1935, life is viewed through a very narrow schism. The good old days, before 1935, before the earthquake that ruined almost all of its infrastructure, killing over 30,000 to boot, and the bad days since. Add a heaping dose of doom and gloom for every year post founding of the once Dominion, now Islamic Republic, of Pakistan in 1947. In this corner of the world, people tend to believe hope was locked inside Pandora's Box for a different reason entirely. For hope is an evil thing, just as rotten as the rest of the inhabitants of that contraption.

We now move forward in time, from the once hopeful times of Independence Day circa 1947, the hope of a new nation and better days to come, until we hit the 2010s – but we do not see any development. The economy has stagnated, and the people are worse off than they were before. There is only disillusionment and deprivation. Added to the box of despair and misery is the missing person phenomenon, state sanctioned abductions are now the norm.

We now present for your consideration, the tale of a journalist, seeking gainful employment. One Bilal Mehngal, who works as an honorary journalist in Noshki, a correspondent for a newspaper called the Independent, the kind that you won't find at a news stand, or even with a seller that carries most newspapers. The Independent did not pay him a salary, and eking out an existence per story covered was miserable.

Picture a journalist, in need of money, and picture the Pakistan army, the country's most successful business enterprise. Picture, if you can, that journalist trying to make his way out of the quagmire of poverty and squalor.....but the people of Quetta are people of few means, and life treats them just as apathetically as it does Bilal.

Picture then, his euphoria, when the army itself wanted to hire a tailor on a long term basis, the most gainful employment of all and Bilal just happened to have a background in tailoring, due to having worked with his older brother, who was a tailor. Lucky break, you would say, and you would be wrong if you were at all familiar with what happened in Balochistan.

In order to stitch for the army, our friend the tailor had to work within the garrison, an extremely secure, highly regulated environment. He and his son were the only civilians there, everyone else was from the army.

Now picture if you will, the chain of command, and the army's officer cadre. Picture if you will, a baboon smoking a cigar, and drinking whisky, picturing himself as the very height of culture. His qualifications? A useless Bachelor's, and a schooling just as pathetic. His patience? None. These people only care about results. And when something bad happens, they want a name. Failure to supply one means an end to your career. In Pakistan, everyone is a wolf, but also a sheep that hopes to survive by throwing you to the wolves instead.

Now picture, if you will, the tension in Quetta. A city where the number of abductions and missing people continues to spiral. The abductors? The ones within those garrisoned walls.

Picture our tailor, and his son, happily working at their station, when a soldier is shot at. The time? 6:30 PM.

The soldiers of the army are just as savage as their masters, only they put on no airs. A name is needed. A name is given, the name of one of the only two civilians in the garrison at the time.

The civilian was the tailor's son.

It did not matter that he was with his father in the shop, or that they had proof of his presence there, or even a register logging him as leaving the shop at 7:15 PM, and not a minute before.

What matters is what was said by one uniform to another.

And so, our tailor, once seeking gainful employment, now stands outside the Quetta press club, lost in the sea of fellow Baloch faces seeking something even more elusive than hope, justice.

45 disappeared, 48 killed. A headline for the ages in any other nation. But for the Baloch people? Just another month. August, 2022, in fact, and almost every other month is just the same.

The citizenry of Pakistan, however, may as well have prosopagnosia, for they see no difference between him, and countless others. There is a reason the Baloch lock hope away.

Somewhere in Peshawar, in a lesser known Government Hospital

Dr. Fawltea entered his domain, the forgotten Medical E ward, like a king finally bestowing his magnanimous grace upon one of those lesser-visited and more neglected hamlets. Or, to give it a more local flavor, a police officer visiting one of those streets he knew was frequented by smugglers, drug dealers, and those he hated the most: fruit vendors; but those vendors would not sour his mood on that particular day because he had gotten a brand-new motorcycle as a gift from the state. A gift, in this context, being a bike he'd taken a fancy to at the impound, removed the plates off of, and claimed as his own. Similarly, nothing would sour Fawltea's mood today; not the faulty oxygen lines, the lack of essential drugs, the misplaced crash carts or even the outdated monitors that were well past it, their green phosphorescent glow drowning out any information a doctor might glean from them.

Not even Gul Abad, the technician who liked to pretend he was a trainee from some other specialty, could ruin his day. He had been a Cardiologist, Pulmonologist, and even an Emergency Medicine specialist (a specialty that wasn't even recognized in Peshawar, such was his dedication to the role). He'd argued many a time with Gul Abad in the past, but, like others before him, Dr. Fawltea too had given up, realizing he was just one of many; there were similar characters in Surgery, Radiology, Pathology, and even the blood bank, for some reason.

“Gul Abad is not just a person, he is an idea, and these ideas often have their own clinics on the outskirts of town” had become his new go-to line whenever any new doctors asked what his deal was.

Why anyone would want to be a blood bank officer, Dr. Fawltea could not fathom, but then, dear reader, he was not aware of Gul Abad's favorite maxim: “There is always money in the blood bank.” Gul Abad's role model, a notoriously corrupt doctor who had dodged jail more times than Pakistan had had IMF bailout programs (25 at the time of writing) had bestowed this wisdom unto him. In Gul Abad's view, this saint among men would've probably cheated the IMF and led Pakistan to heights hitherto unseen. In the views of more pragmatic people, such as his family, friends, etc. he would've taken a few bad loans and absconded with the money.

While Gul Abad had been named after his father's favorite place, Dr. Fawltea was sadly not named by his father after that esteemed personage, Basil Fawlty, who managed Fawlty Towers. But he told people that anyway, making sure to look at them with a derisive eye so that they would not ask questions about why the timeline didn't match up, him being older than Fawlty Towers and all. This benevolent shepherd (or so he fancied himself—but then he also fancied himself a cardiologist, even though he had specialized in internal medicine) of that godforsaken flock, which constituted today's trainees (they did not even know how to read ECGs, the only one that had shown any interest was that annoying Gul Abad), annoyed him to no end. But nothing could ruin his mood today; he had finally managed to get his hands on the holy grail of holy grails: a VIP. VIP in this here context does not mean Very Important Person; it means Very Important Patient.

Patients, you see, had varying levels of importance for Dr. Fawltea (and many other Pakistani doctors) depending on what they had to offer. A poor patient? Pointless. The milk of human kindness, however much remained in Dr. Fawltea, compelled him to take a cursory look at those poor downtrodden and help them, but that is all. Those middle-class, annoying patients who only asked questions, on the other hand – ingrates, the lot of them – were of no use to him. He disliked them the most. VIPs, on the other hand, were patients that were connected to the halls of power; they could be businessmen, criminals (in Pakistan, the Venn Diagram of such an association would be extremely overlapping; some have tried to find that rare creature, a businessman that is not a criminal, and have turned every rock up and down for said cause, but to no avail), politicians (much like businessmen, they also overlap with criminals, and like our criminals, they overlap with businessmen too), and of course, the unicorn: a high-ranking army officer. Dr. Fawltea was dreaming of luxurious luncheons at golf courses, days whiled away driving those cute little golf carts all over the course. Perhaps he would even throw down a fishing rod or two in the water – he didn't care that there were no fish. He was due some much needed introspection.

He entered the break room, not at all surprised to find only two of his sheep there. He did not know how many there were in total; only God knew that because the system was a mess, and over half of them were ghost employees who never showed up, except when they needed to change their attendance records – a little bribery went a long way. Within the lounge, there was that new fellow who looked like he was dressed as a seller for a book fair at some old bookshop that had long since run out of funds and was hoping to glean some extra sympathy from buyers; he was talking about how computers were unfairly priced for the umpteenth time. He was perpetually on the night shift, and judging by his pallor Fawltea was beginning to suspect the fellow was some sort of lesser vampire.

Sitting on that twin green sofa across the table was that famous professor's daughter. Her father had a master's in several domains, and she too claimed expertise in said matters. Why she had decided to go into medicine also baffled Dr. Fawltea, he had seen her discuss everything but. She was, as ever, reading her book out loud, perhaps lost in the delusions of being a person of lordly caliber, much as Fawltea himself was. Dr. Fawltea wondered if she too viewed the other doctors as her flock; it certainly seemed like it. He did not like the idea of competition from a junior doctor, but, being related to not one but two brigadiers on her mother's side, Dr. Fawltea knew better than to say anything to her. A harsh word from him would lead to many harsh beatdowns in a cell. 'Sticks and stones will break my bones, and words will never save me,' he reminded himself. Feigning polite interest, for one can always do with being on good terms with someone related to the army, he smiled and asked, 'And what are we reading today?'”

The Professor, as she was affectionately nicknamed (not that she was aware they called her that), smiled back and pointed to the cover of the book dismissively, as if Dr. Fawltea was not worthy of her time. It was another one of Adam Smith's works; of course it was. Moral Sentiments or something. And all he could do, in lieu of her powerful family, was to nod and smile as she continued to read it out loud, as if this were a Class 3 (for my American audience, think third grade; for my British audience, I am not familiar with your form system rannygazoo) English lesson.

She spoke stentoriously: “It is to be observed accordingly, that we are still more anxious to communicate to our friends our disagreeable than our agreeable passions, that we derive still more satisfaction from their sympathy with the former than from that with the latter, and that we are still more shocked by the want of it.” The fellow who looked like a down-on-his-luck bookseller nodded and obliged, Fawltea was not sure if it was due to genuine interest or simply what her status commanded. Fawltea felt bad for the poor sod, it was clear he'd not slept all night, and now this. It was all Fawltea could do to keep himself from yelling something akin to “Go on, you vampire, go into the sunlight and end your torment.”

All this scene really needed – Fawltea thought in disdain – was a harsh, dissonant violin to make it more annoying, or perhaps a sad piano piece to drive home the lesser vampire's agony. “Shall we start the round then?” Dr. Fawltea asked, though it was more of a command than anything.

“After this chapter,” replied the Professor, as if she were the head consultant and Fawltea the trainee medical officer.

Fawltea sat down to drink some tea, wondering if any of the other rascals he supervised would bother showing up to today's round, when the Hardy Boyses entered the lounge as if it were their own backyard, bringing a smile to his face. He called them that because they reminded him of Frank and Joe, two characters from his favorite book series. Always together, practically like brothers, always off having an adventure. Normally, this sounded great, but when their adventures (the Hardy Boyses in a brawl with the local Snooker Club toughs was a particular favorite of Fawltea's) happened on the hospital's time and dime – that is to say, they were being paid to treat patients and not beat up hoodlums that darkened the doors of the local Snooker club, or go hunting or fishing or whatever else they found to occupy their already paid-for time – it made quite a lot of administrative trouble. But Fawltea had always idolized such adventurous lads, having been denied that feeling in his own school years. He was now living vicariously through them, much like the books had allowed him to live vicariously through Frank and Joe. If that stupid deputy sub-inspector police were going to make sure his nephew Gul Abad stayed, then he, Fawltea, would also fight to the death for his Hardy Boyses, who had taken him fishing, hunting, and even horse riding, besides the usual spot of cricket. Sadly, they did not have access to that hanging garden of Babylon, the local golf course. He could simply go and pay a rather exorbitant sum, but Fawltea had always found it hard to part with his money.

“Allo allo bruva,” said Frank, whose hair was in more disarray than the traffic in Peshawar, but not so bad as to be likened to the traffic in Karachi or Lahore. “Hey, bro,” said Joe, who had used more hair gel than a baboon would on a particularly bad hair day. Both of them fist-bumped Fawltea. This, right here, was the dream. For a moment, he too had forgotten he was their boss, and he was just one of the lads. There was a triumphant smirk on his face, and in his own mind, he was bathed in radiance, others watching on, jealous that he was a member of this exclusive boys' club. How Fawltea wished they were off in some long lost Amazonian jungle, finding lost treasures and thwarting devious pit vipers as they made their way to the top of a sacrificial altar just in time to save the world from a permanent eclipse. But before he knew it, they were gone again. Dammit, he had not gotten a chance to get any new stories from them, his daydreams were too vivid sometimes.

The Professor's sermon on Adam Smith's treatise regarding moral sentiments continued for a good while, during which Fawltea pondered many things. He wondered when exactly the heat death of the universe would occur, if today’s youth were interested in those old Doctor Who radio dramas, and why his car had such particularly bad mileage. As a matter of fact, it was because his driver used it as a taxi during the time Fawltea was busy working.

As he continued to ponder, another trainee he was afraid of entered. The first words she uttered were: “Hi Benazir, hi Hamlet. I'm well past 3000 now!” and then she made a peace sign. The fellow who looked like the world's most forlorn bookseller (Fawltea could see why he had the Hamlet moniker, it was easy to visualize the boy being plagued by several ghosts, though he would've gone with some lesser known vampire himself) mumbled congratulations. The Professor (aptly nicknamed Benazir, after the former Prime Minister who was the first woman to lead a Muslim majority government) also nodded her acknowledgment. Unfortunately for Dr. Fawltea, this trainee was not related to any army officers by any degrees of separation; she was as close to the establishment as one could possibly be – both of her parents were high-ranking officers. Why she was in a government hospital like this and not a military hospital, he couldn't fathom, but it possibly had something to do with the higher salary and the lack of consequences. All one had to do was be in the right place at the right time, and they could perform operations well outside their own domain. Fawltea himself had done a few appendectomies and exploratory laparotomies out of sheer curiosity, and had even botched a few cardiac surgeries.

While looking at her, most would see a normal girl. Not Fawltea, though. He always saw her flanked by two phantasms, both famous generals of the past, who looked at him threateningly, daring him to say anything so they could toss him into a jail cell for good, their mustaches brimming with the arrogance of a thousand suns. At least she wouldn't oppress him like The Professor, Fawltea consoled himself as he watched the girl sit down, bring out a MacBook (which, by the way, is asking for trouble in a government hospital, dear reader, as someone will invariably want to snatch it) and start watching a movie with her fancy Bluetooth thingamajigs that fit in the ear, they were called earpods or something of the sort. Fawltea did not like how they made him feel; he was an old-fashioned sort and preferred old-school headphones. He noticed she watched at least two, sometimes three or four movies at work, and he wondered just how many films she must have seen. The number must be in the thousands. One day, perhaps, he'd talk cinema with her – always useful to have contacts in the army, after all.

A cursory look told him she was watching The Breakfast Club, the irony of which was not lost on Fawltea. His own ward, once a well disciplined unit that ran with the cold, calculated efficiency of a machine when he was a trainee here, had turned into a recreational club of sorts under his own command. It seemed as if she were mocking his very being, by watching that movie.

Having given up on conducting a morning round, some but not all of his good mood soured like your typical fruit vendor's stock in the suburbs of Hayatabad, Peshawar. Fawltea had decided the hangdog bookseller would be carrying out today’s orders. He did not like to call Frank and Joe and ask them to cover their allotted beds, for he did not want to seem uncool. They would say something like, “Never figured you for a stooge,” and he would no longer be one of the boys, merely a toad, or whatever slang was hip these days.

As much as he hated that bloke who kept gabbing on about how Pakistan would have its first guillotine soon, the revolution being nigh, the bourgeoisie finally coming out and making the nation their own, Fawltea realized he was missing him today. His arguments with The Professor about Communism, Socialism, Economics, Philosophy, and the like usually ended up with the cozy, almost café-esque atmosphere so prevalent here right now going up in flames, and everyone marching out to start the round without Fawltea having to say anything. Come to think of it, this was the first day he’d been absent. Communist or no, Fawltea had suddenly become an admirer of the man, and after a few phone calls that went unanswered, Fawltea had realized that this Tartan Check sweater wearing patriot had probably been picked up for good. Others had warned the fellow not to go on posting exposés about the army’s various businesses, but he had not taken those warnings to heed. Fawltea wondered if he should perhaps ask the girl whose parents were high-ranking officers to have a word with them about Mr. Tartan Check, but then he remembered what had happened to all those people who had become missing persons simply because they were searching for another, and decided against it. He poured himself a cup of tea and drank it in remembrance, hoping Mr. Check would return alive someday.

The “café” that the doctor's lounge had become now had two happy faces on the green sofa towards the left – one reading her book out loud, the other watching a movie on her Mac with her Bluetooth thingamajigs – and two downcast faces on the right: the fellow who looked like a woebegone bookseller, and Fawltea, who was sure the former was going to print out a few posters of Adam Smith (on the hospital's dime, of course) and throw a few darts at them. As things stood currently, Fawltea wanted to do so himself; perhaps this could be a bonding moment. It would be far better than brooding at graveyards, or whatever it was this gloomy vampire undertaker did in his free time.

As for Frank and Joe, Fawltea speculated they had probably embarked on their next adventure, and had just been stopped by the police for carrying all that vodka near GT Road. Alcohol was illegal in Pakistan and usually carried the threat of jail, but even the police officer had fallen for their charisma, wanting so badly to be one of the lads that he ended up escorting them in his own car so that no one would stop them. They seemed like rich, well-off boys, so the officer knew no good would come of arresting them. He had a penchant for good vodka anyway; might as well make friends with people who could source the damn thing. They probably sang Pashto songs as they traveled to the River View hotel, where the plan was to drive the police car into the sea or some such. Yes, it seemed like the sort of thing they would do on any given day; at least, in Fawltea's opinion. Outside that world of dreams, however, Frank and Joe were just playing snooker at a newer, lesser-known club, as was their custom, so that they would not become too well known as hustlers.

God, Fawltea missed Nancy Drew, as addicted as she was to reading true crime books, she could be trusted to check up on the patients and make sure they were all getting the right medication. But she had since made her way to far off shores, and Fawltea had not been able to find anyone else with that sense of responsibility. Now she had been replaced by a Veronica Mars, who only cared about what Olivia Rodrigo was up to and the like. “They're all doomed anyway, they're living in Pakistan.” Veronica would say nonchalantly, before going back to her phone, refusing to check up on any of the patients. Were she not some higher up bureaucrat's daughter, she too would be walking the plank on his ship, but instead she was busy making all kinds of playlists for her musically uncultured colleagues.

As Fawltea continued to wallow in despair, the clock, which had struck 9 (and 8 before, and 7 before that, and so on), struck 10, and he realized he had waited over 90 minutes for Adam Smith’s sermon to end. Just then, Gul Abad entered, and the first thing he did was ask when the round was going to start. As much as Fawltea despised the fellow, he wanted to sing his praises for the interruption. But sadly for Fawltea, no one else heard Gul Abad. Before Fawltea could say anything, Gul Abad seized the opportunity and declared, “Don't worry, I'll conduct the round myself.” Did he just conjure a lab coat out of thin air? Fawltea was flabbergasted, but before he could say anything, Gul Abad had bolted faster than The Flash when he needed to mess with the fabric of time itself.

Fawltea called his Assistant Professor, wondering why the AP had not arrived. “Pakistan vs Netherlands hockey match today, mate, can't be bothered.” was all he got. Fawltea muttered more curses under his breath, wishing he were part of some military outfit — then he’d like to see how anyone would dare disobey or misbehave as they were now. Still, he had to begrudgingly give the man some credit, here he was supporting the flickering flame of a once glorious hockey empire. The jokers that sat before Fawltea had no idea how glorious Pakistan's hockey team had once been in the 70s and the 80s, winning four world cups.

“You, come with me. Don't just sit around. It's time for the round,” Fawltea motioned to the boy, who looked like a heartbroken bookseller whose wares had drowned due to a leak while he had already been weighed down by a suffocating debt. Or a vampire that had just arrived at a blood bank for a feast, only to be hit with a flood of sunlight. Afraid of getting in trouble with his supervisor, the depressed vampire started to get up, only to be chided for it.

“Sit down, you idiot, don't get up.” The Professor glared angrily at him; he was now exuding the vibe of a practically hopeless bookseller whose store had burned down, and it was beginning to look like he would cry.

Then, she shot an angry look at Fawltea, dropping her Adam Smith for the moment. This did not bode well.

“And just why does he have to obey you? We don't have to do anything you say. We're doctors, we're supposed to be independent. We'll examine patients on our own time. Why don't you stick to your job, and let us do ours? It's not like this is an office, and you're our boss.” She huffed with the kind of rage usually seen in a tiger disturbed from enjoying its usual meal of daily villager, with a side of rabbit.

As a matter of fact, he was precisely that. They were trainees, and the whole point of training was to do as you were told by your supervisor. But these new trainees weren’t even interested in following basic protocols. Suddenly, Fawltea realized just how brave the Tartan Check doctor was for taking on these establishment prats, for he could not bring himself to do the same and risk the army's wrath. Even a lowly captain could make you disappear forever, never mind someone related to brigadiers. It was all he could do to stop his hands from shaking.

Nodding and saying, “Sorry, ma'am,” because he was reminded of his particularly harsh History teacher, and because his paranoia insisted on it, he left the doctor's lounge. He was consoled by the fact that, for the gloomy insomniac, listening to more Adam Smith was a fate far worse than any that could befall him during a morning round.

Fawltea started to make his way to the private room where his VIP patient was. Always best to butter these fellows up and what not. He made his way past the main counter where over 20 people were queued up. The two doctors on duty there were playing Tekken Tag on the PC used to register and discharge patients, and the crowd of attendants in the queue seemed more interested in the match than in their own patients. Various amounts of money were exchanged, and the fellow playing Heihachi and Kuma against Eddy and Hwoarang had 12-1 odds or something of the sort. Fawltea liked Heihachi, he was a no-nonsense man, the kind that threw his own son off a cliff if need be. If only I were like him, he thought pensively.

The IT Administrator seemed to be handling the financial side of things as far as the betting went. Fawltea remembered those days when these two buffoons could be found playing Tekken 3. The queues seemed far shorter back then, interest in Tekken 3 had waned after 15 odd years of it being the mainstay government hospital videogame in Peshawar, (and all the other cities too) but now the queues were longer than ever – signing off on those new PCs had been Fawltea's undoing. The IT Administrator had tricked him into thinking it would make the administrative side of things faster, yet all it had done was gum up the works significantly while lining his own pockets. These PCs were also capable of playing Tekken 4, 5, and 6 for when interest in Tag waned. The future of the administrative side of the process looked bleak.

When he finally arrived, still a bit shaken by his brief encounter with what he swore was the Grim Reaper playing Ludo with the custodial staff, he found a nurse putting the death shroud on his patient’s face, eyes closed. “W-what happened?” he asked, his voice cracking as if his very soul – and more importantly, his hopes and dreams of free adventures on the golf course – were being cleaved out. There went his only chance of impressing Frank and Joe.”

“Dr. Gul Abad tried his best; he threw everything at uncle – adrenaline, morphine, ketamine, you name it,” said the patient's only attendant. All Fawltea could do was glare at Gul Abad, who was doing his best to look solemn while the attendant thanked him for trying so hard to save his uncle, who had been admitted for a simple case of mild pneumonia, which Fawltea had managed quite well.

They went outside the room, Fawltea fuming like a police officer who discovered the bike he had stolen from another had been stolen from him. “You did it again; you rat bastard. You killed a perfectly stable patient.” His eyebrows nearly jumped off his face, as if he were some sort of angered cartoon.

“I saw signs that led me to predict a shortness of breath, sir, and concluded adrenaline might be needed, so I acted in advance, before the bacteria could surprise us. I am still learning about why they use morphine and ketamine,” Gul Abad spoke nonchalantly, as if he were a trainee.

“Goddamn it, YOU ARE NOT A DOCTOR!” Fawltea wanted to choke him right then and there, yet Gul Abad was smiling as if they were the best of friends, like petrol smugglers in Balochistan and the soldiers that patrolled the border on petrol smuggling day.

“I got his golf club pass for you, sir; the nephew agreed to put it in your name, the paperwork is underway.” Gul Abad smiled wryly, holding out the card.

“Oh, you did...? Well, that does change things. Well done, Gul Abad; perhaps I shall teach you a few things from now on.” He smiled, all that malice evaporating faster than Pakistan's GDP crashing after the typical bust caused by bad loans stimulating useless consumption. A patient was a patient after all; you lose one, you move on to the next. Such was the spirit the country that had defaulted 3 times had inculcated in its citizens. Frank and Joe were more important, as were his dreams of golf.

“Shall we drink some tea, sir, while you teach me how to read ECGs?” said Gul Abad, as one of the poor patients in the corner rooms passed away silently, forgotten by all. In his death summary, Veronica Mars merely wrote: “Saved him from a bleak, hopeless future that would probably end in suicide anyway. kthxbai”

“Of course, of course,” nodded Fawltea happily, and they went back to that pleasant café, what was once known as the doctor's lounge. Without the argumentative revolutionary, it was certainly far more pleasant. Fawltea made a mental note to be sure to denounce him beforehand on his social media accounts, just to make sure the authorities didn't assume they were pals or anything. There was no arguing with them, one only ended up in an infinite combo of pain.

The Professor was still reading, still the most imperious of orators. Fawltea wondered if she somehow wasn't related to Mark Antony. “The first are those whining and melancholy moralists, who are perpetually reproaching us with our happiness, while so many of our brethren are in misery, who regard as impious the natural joy of prosperity, which does not think of the many wretches that are at every instant labouring under all sorts of calamities, in the languor of poverty, in the agony of disease, in the horrors of death, under the insults and oppressions of their enemies.”

Adam Smith was going to haunt this lounge for a good while longer, it seemed. The Breakfast Club was no longer playing on the Macbook; it was now Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Fawltea liked this Ferris fellow, he reminded him of his buddies Frank and Joe. Maybe it was time he took a day off, too, and went on a wild adventure. He made his way towards his classic 96 Corolla, and drove off, it did not matter where he went.

Back at the hospital, Gul Abad had noticed the Defibrillator for the very first time, and was wondering just how it worked. Now that he had surface level knowledge of electrocardiograms, it was time to put his knowledge to the test.

I have been meaning to make this entry for a while now. My first thought was to perhaps find a Fediverse instance with 1000 character limit, or something of the sort, perhaps even higher, haha.

But on reflection, I wanted to write just a tad more, making this a better fit.

Earlier, on Saturday, that is the 23rd of November, I went to my cousin's wedding. We're not that close, but generally attendance, and a small gift (money is usually the way, we do not have registries and the like) is considered mandatory at these things so I had to go. I, of course, did not take any gifts, since I assumed my parents would, being fond of my own money and all. I did not care to confirm that they did, for I wished to cover my bases, me asking may have lead to a no, why didn't you, and a negative outcome for self.

Anyways, back to the wedding itself, the old men mingled with other old men; sadly not wearing golf caps and plus sixes, no cool pipes either. They were, perhaps, talking of times long gone – times when the grass was more green than brown, the air not a near lethal dose of toxic smog equivalent to smoking 40 cigarettes in a day, and crime was the exception, rather than the norm. The invention of mobile phones has something to do with this. that most attractive and lucrative profession, phone snatching, would not be so rampant if we were still stuck with telephones. Imagine someone sticking you up at gunpoint, asking you to take them home, so they make take your telephone set – no one is going to risk it all and go to such lengths for something far cheaper than any phone.

One may wonder if wallet snatchers exist or not, the answer to which is simple. They do, but make up far less of the robber %, being that most of us walking the streets are poor, our wallets are similarly deprived of any meaningful cash for them. Thus, they have that other most attractive profession, that of robber who hangs around outside the ATM. The glint in the eyes of said robbers when they see someone vulnerable is something to behold, not unlike that of the look in one's own eyes when the PS2 finally avoids the dreaded red screen that accompanies an unreadable disc.

There are sadly not any Beyblade snatchers, though perhaps in one of the zillions of other timelines, there is a lil' DigiVoyager who turned to a life of crime, and decided he might as well get a Beyblade collection out of it, circa 2009. He probably has an account named DigiSurfer, or something to that effect and enjoys playing Grand Theft Auto 2, and only 2, because he is a hipster or something of the sort.

But back to the wedding, on the other side, the women mingled with other women, for weddings among us Pashtuns are generally segregated. There was much gossip, and nothing but gossip as my mother tells me, and people speaking of making matches between so and so's son, and this and that's daughter, while both of the aforementioned parties are enjoying university life, oblivious to this sudden axe hanging over their heads. I imagine it must be like taking a nice leisurely stroll on a nearby road, only to run into a wild leopard -also a thing that has happened to a few unfortunate souls here in Pakistan. I am told my name comes up often, first with an array of optimism – oh, he's a doctor, but then someone invariably mentions my salary; who first sourced my income, and then told the rest, I do not know, but my mother denies it so it was probably one of my aunts or cousins – then the conversation quickly turns to other names or women who are 40 and over, yet very wealthy.

Dear my aunts and cousins, I am not a gold digger, I do not know what caused you to imagine me so.

Now, there's a lot of showing off, pomp and festive merrymaking at these things, provided the festivities have been thrown by a middle class (or better) family. As we go up the economic ladder, the festivities get more and more luxurious, and segregation too, tapers off.

However, this one was a distinctly lower class affair. I am not mocking my cousin's status by the way, in case the thing may seem mean spirited or such, he and I are about the same economically as Goblin A and Goblin B in one of your role playing games, the mooks you beat up around the start of your game without even letting them get a hit in.

We sat in the tent, cold, I taking in the usual chat: Uncle A talks about how he purchased a rare WW2 rifle from so and so, uncle C reveal the rifle is a fake as he knows the seller only provides fakes, uncle A insists it must be a different fellow with the same name, uncle C opens his Facebook profile, uncle A curses, uncle B tries to sneak an extra plate in the heat of the moment, uncle D talks of how he plans on finally purchasing that dream car but his own progress in that matter is about the same as mine in getting that coveted Panda Trueno, that is to say he and I are about as close to owning a car as this country is to fixing itself.

If any time travelers are reading, I wish to know: Does he ever get the car? I can make peace with me not getting one, but I am too invested in his tale.

Back to the class matter, our weddings during winter are not ones you want to attend. We are not the class of family that rents out wedding halls, these events take place in tents, and you can probably imagine how cold it gets. For warmth, there are a few fires lit here and there, you sit down by them if you are feeling cold. If there are ever any portable heaters or the like, all of them always go to the women's side.

This is never an issue in middle class or better weddings. For photography and recording, many families hire drone photographers and the like, but here we had just one photographer, a friend of my cousin's with a DSLR. This, by the way, is a rule of getting by in Pakistan. If you know anyone with a DSLR, befriend them instantly. I wonder if these DSLR fellows ever get burgeoning existential crises where they wonder if people care about them or their camera more.

When the thing is done, there are photos at the end. The bride and groom sit on a sofa, and families go in turn to take photos with them, pretending to have a nice conversation and such. I generally never take part in these things. Many feel it is shyness, or some other reason. In my own view, the crux of the matter seems to lie in me not really being close to my relatives, it feels rather like a case of impostor syndrome, I've never really had any bonding moments with them, nor they me, and to appear in these would feel not only wrong, but also so as to be cheapening their memories. This does seem like a rather odd tangent to go off on, but I do wonder what it feels like on the other side. I imagine people just keep photos of people they like, and get rid of the rest. But do they also feel that cheapening, or is it just me?

Perhaps they are too happy, too euphoric to care, like Uncle B, sneaking off to where the rice is being made, claiming he needs some more plates for misters X, Y and Z, who remain as unaware of his deeds as they were 20 years ago.

Still, I would love to photograph one of these events one day, the raw authenticity one sees is something else. I wish to take wedding photos, and someday soon I may, if I ever get my camera. For the moment, it is about as close as Uncle D's car.