Advent Children: New Years

0

I have been holding off from writing for a couple of reasons. First off, I don’t like the way substack has been managing the spate of Nazis on its platform, namely by allowing them to make money by peddling hate. Unfortunately, I can’t really come up with a good alternative due, in no small part, to a total lack of creativity. That said, I think there’s an argument for not abandoning a whole forum to the slime of the internet that have already taken every other forum, and I think there’s an argument for not abandoning the people who’ve subscribed to the work I promised here. So to split the difference, anyone who’d prefer not to do the sub stack route anymore, please email me and I’ll give you a patreon code as reimbursement for the paid substack subscription. I’ll be cross-posting both free and premium stuff here and at patreon.com/nocartridge. You can also totally still subscribe here too. Again, imperfect solution, but I should keep writing for my own sake as well as yours.

1

The other reason I’ve held off on writing is because I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed by the weight of it. Part of that is the Advent Project, which I think we can all agree was a bit premature and over ambitious. But another big part of that is a feeling of purposelessness recently, in part due to the end of a meandering job hunt and a persistent feeling over the past one or two years that I can’t quite recapture the energy of my previous output.

This isn’t a dig at No Cartridge, as I think I and (especially) my cohost Olivia put out great work. All the folks that work with me — Andrew, Sam, Graham, Jon, Emily Liv, et al — are phenomenal, and you owe it to yourself to get the kind of edification I have by listening to their episodes on No Cartridge Audio. But I, personally, feel like my output lacks some joie de vivre. I’m a self-critical man at heart, and it’s quite possible I’m being a bit over critical, but it’s also something I think I’ve wanted to fix for a long time, and don’t quite know how to start on. Maybe it’s about getting more sleep? Who knows!

2

Thinking about this got me thinking about how in videogames, this kind of lack of purpose is never something you need to concern yourself with. You open a game, start it up, and within minutes, you’re given a sort of backstory and set of goals to pursue. As these goals change and shift, you’re left with the same level of legibility concerning them: numbers go up and quests go down as you complete and knock off things you’re expected to do. Or you’re given tools and a toolbox and told to construct to any number of different ends that essentially represent various iterations on a creative task. Or you’re given a story and asked to finish it up, either by pursuing a linear narrative arc or fleshing out secondary arcs. Any way you slice it, you’re given a purpose when you start a game, and that’s critically different than life is.

In life, you’re given a series of ideal outcomes as you grow up, but very few objectively defined purposes. I’ve had a lot of successes in my life, and I won’t downplay those; but when the successes don’t come with a clear “numbers go up” trajectory, it’s hard to feel confident that I’ve checked all of the boxes I should. I’m left feeling like I’ve missed a step or, more likely than not, several steps.

3

It’s not surprising that this kind of thing springs to mind at the new year. As I’ve covered to no small degree, the onset of a new year is a kind of apocalyptic sort of moment. There’s hope as well, just like in a new millennium, but there’s a terrifying sort of telescopic vision backwards as well, as we grasp just how many things we have let go or not accomplished that we intended to. I assumed not making resolutions this year would help, but here we are.

4

So to put it bluntly: I’m kind of worried I’m not so good at creating content sometimes. Again, I think the content I do make is pretty damn good. But I worry that my work ethic doesn’t correspond or that I’ve burned too many bridges or that I’m too old (I mean I am too old, but too old for this), etc. And a lot of this is irrational but, to bring it back around to a couple thoughts ago, without a lil chart telling me “hey you’re about 65 percent complete on 2023 Chronicles, the GOTY Version” I’m a bit at a loss to quantify how irrational it is. Maybe that’s just the way New Years works, but maybe it’s a call for me to think through how production of content is a mug’s game and how I can do it differently.

And so, here you are, getting a bunch of aphoristic approaches to games in 2023 as well as life in 2023 as well as Trevor Strunk’s Personal Brain in 2023. Consider it an experiment.

5

I won’t lie, I was planning on releasing this on New Year’s Eve, but I realized I don’t see much difference between New Year’s Eve and Day — they’re a weird parallel holiday, now especially that I don’t have a lot of opportunity to get blotto on the former. I also made a New Year’s Resolution for the first time in ages, namely to take it a bit easier on myself this year. What that means for me is just not being an asshole to myself all the time, not making impossible jobs, trying to keep myself upright and alive and well. That’s a kind of outcome or purpose, and to that end, I’ve decided to add more little checkpoints for myself in the year which should make me feel better about my accomplishments.

If this reads like someone quitting AA and trying to justify why their new system they just invented should work better, that is perhaps not coincidental.

6

So what about those benchmarks and little wins I’m building myself? Well, they’re games I’d like to get to this year and talk about with you all. I do think I’ve done a good job at least talking about the games I play with everyone, and the best move is probably, therefore, to play a few more games. Some will be ones I’ve owed folks for a while; others are going to be for me. Again, new year, new focus on being a lil bit selfish.

In all honesty, being selfish in the past has backfired on me: the lovely and hilarious E1 Podcast is largely pretty fuckin mad at me and have been for years because I spouted off about not making enough money one day. That was an uncharitable moment built on a moment of panic over a lost course, and I don’t blame those dudes cutting ties at all and wish them well. I’ve also gotten shit for doing fundraisers for my own ability to keep the podcast running instead of charity; I get that impulse and I don’t blame folks for thinking I’m greedy either. I just sometimes need to be petty and greedy, I think, even if that makes me uglier. Sort of like doing a complex build in a Souls game or something, something.

What I’m saying is that there are limits to the video game analogy; you can’t always please everyone or always move forward. I’ll just try to be a bit more open and honest about that all, with sincere apologies to everyone who I’ve bummed out, welched on, or disappointed in the past.

7

Higurashi

This is one for me, see? Well kind of — I think there are a few people who are interested in my take on this and it’s in-universe followup Umineko, maybe just as many who dread it (Andrew, I’m looking at you). That said, I’ve been fascinated by visual novels since I finally beat The Silver Case and since I realized that all those Ace Attorney games I loved were just secret visual novels themselves. Oh and I also ended up playing all of Danganronpa (almost) with Sam this year, so I suppose the fixation is somewhat warranted or earned. I’ve wanted to think about these games a lot more, but I’m not convinced there’s much of a market for a book on it.

In any case, Higurashi represents a really fun start for me, particularly in terms of the idea of purposiveness — each arc and story is split into its own game, representing the chapters and possible paths I can take, I’m assuming. There’s something comforting about this — I’m not gonna miss anything, I get to see the whole game as long as I finish it up, like a novel. Games often emphasize choices to the point that content has to be unlocked by a series of bespoke weirdo decisions: I’m refreshed by the concept that I can just expect to play a game and finish it.

8

Baldur’s Gate 3

On the other hand, I should probably be more comfortable making choices! Games are most fun when played on their own terms, and as much as it made me itch, starting BG3 while fully aware that I’d be missing some stuff was kind of fun once I got the hang of it. And the game is so good that it really deserves more of my attention. No real lesson here.

9

Fallout: New Vegas

Time to actually play this one through, the evil way. When Josh Sawyer mentioned in conversation that there’s a ton of content that people haven’t seen at like a 90 pct clip because the choices a person has to make as a bad person hurt so much. I think I’ll struggle with this a lot, but I’m fascinated by this idea of a negative emotion in a game as a sort of gate to pass.

Role playing is hard when you don’t think you’re all that special but when you don’t have a great imagination. Most of my characters in games are just fairly lumpy guys who I name Hegel and I make the same choices I’d make in their shoes. That does have a certain appeal, but I’m curious about how it would feel to force myself into bad choices, which is something I don’t think a lot of gamers do. Is it cathartic in the Artistotelian sense or is it just awful? I’d like to find out.

10

One of the things I’d like to get to this year is another book abstract. Part of me wants to go ahead and say that I’ll probably never do it because it’s so much work and because it’s not like I made anything off the first book. Another part of me is acutely aware that thinking about money as the only measure of “success” is kind of dumb. I have lots of things to say about lots of games, but I’m not sure I have a single cohesive thought that’s worth pursuing.

One I think has some neat value and I might try to frame out a bit in my early writing this year is the question of what makes art games “art” outside of the question of “are these games art” which, honestly, doesn’t hold a lot of interest for me anymore. I feel like I answered that in Story Mode even if the world hasn’t exactly gotten behind my iron fist of rhetorical truth.

11

Morrowind

Thinking about lumpy Hegel Trev and I think there’s maybe some fun he could get up to in Morrowind right? You know I’ve never played this one? It’s true.

12

Reading back, I’m not sure I made it very clear what the idea here is — this is the advent calendar, on a truly apocalyptic pace, where you get to eat all the candy at once. 26 days worth of content in one big piece. That means we’re almost half way through, and I already am embarrassed how honest I’ve been throughout, so you must be really embarrassed too to witness it! Let’s both admit it’s hard to be so embarrassed, but maybe we both needed it. No? Ok I agree, let’s knock out more videogames I’m playing.

13

Hercule Poirot and Nancy Drew

I’m combining these two because how different are they, really? A Belgian Catholic and a Bohemian daughter without a mom wander into a bar and arrest everyone in it, while also proving they are or are not ghosts.

Detective games directly attack the part of my brain that wants a good conclusion but which is also very worried about pulling the trigger on any clear accusation or claim. They are — or Nancy Drew is — also something I’ve had on my list to play for my friend Alana who is a doll and the best, so why not attempt to work out that knot in my brain a bit.

Detection, as Anna Kornbluh told me once, is interesting not because there’s a machine that gives us answers a la CSI but because it involves a sense of deductive and inductive reasoning that challenges us in the same way that literary analysis does. I’m very good at doing literary analysis, so I should be good at this, but perhaps there is baggage in both.

I did just have a dream where I was naked and talking to a college professor I’d had about the possibility of teaching a contemporary novel course, so let’s amend that to “definitely” from “perhaps.”

14

Knights of the Old Republic

Nothing to say here other than this is maybe the oldest debt I have to make up from Philadelphia twitter friend keeeeeeep swinging, and I will make it work.

15

Flower Sun and Rain

Talking about games with my friends is maybe the best time I have these days. I suppose playing with my kids is more edifying and wholesome for my body and soul, but I’m not sure it’s more fun. Or put differently, it’s not the same thing as sitting down with someone and being dumbly enthusiastic over a thing we just dumped a bunch of hours into. You try finding someone to talk with like that who you aren’t married to or working with — it’s not easy!

So I want to get to this rare little Suda gem ASAP so me and Dia Lacina can talk about it a bit. I always love getting her take on things, because it always surprises me and always involves an approach that is nothing like my own or if nothing else sort of parallel to my own in a way I didn’t see coming. And I think my good friend from Silver Case is going to have a fun vacation and I need to be part of it.

16

The 25th Ward

This is the sequel to Silver Case and people say it’s long and boring which I realized in the shower today is code for “a lot better and maybe harder to parse because it’s smart” so I have to get to it. Suda’s approach to the millenium in this series is very foundational to me, particularly as concerns the anxiety of progress, and I think it would be a healthy thing to think a bit more with him here.

17

Killer7

Last Suda for this list, but I was streaming this with friend of the pod Jimmy Wrong and I’d like to finish it up. It is exhausting and difficult and weird and beautiful.

18

Final Fantasy 14

I won’t list my normal gachas, despite the incipient release of more Honkai AND more Arknights for me to imbibe, because I know everyone collectively rolls their eyes. Trust me you’ll get those too. But I mention FF14 in part because I know Dia and I will have a lot of conflicting opinions on the next expansion and because my good friend Janet and I will be playing the hell out of said expansion and the material in between.

A game that you keep coming back to has a sort of healthful influence on your life, at least for me. It’s a bit like writing here — I have to force myself some days to do it, but once I find myself doing the familiar motions, I am immediately calmer and happier for it. Yes, there’s a bit of a risk of “not getting outside of a comfort zone” but I think having a sort of lived-in demense is not a bad thing at all.

19

Yakuza

Another one I am hopelessly behind on as a request, despite absolutely loving it. This year I’ll play the Yakuza games.

The Yakuza games have the same problem, for me, that the Nier games do — they’re too beautiful and make me too happy, so thinking about finishing them makes me feel conflicted and sad. So I never do. Which is why I left the last boss in Nier: Automata for a whole year and why I played the first half of Yakuza 0 and loved it, but never returned. Frozen in amber, a game can’t end and be over and leave, right?

Well, maybe obviously, that’s an unhealthy way to approach art and life, so let’s try to break that this year Trevor.

20

Live shows are things I miss like water and food and life itself. Even at the end of my run of shows where we were pulling in a middling amount compared to earlier shows, I had so much fun. COVID is a bastard, though, and it’s been hard to imagine a new one for a bit now — still, maybe this is the year we make it work. My buddy Josh Boerman of The Worst of All Possible Worlds is my live show colleague and I bet he’d be interested in this too. But it’s all reliant on the environment, guests, et al.

We will also have to Zoom in Liv from Australia, which like…kind of dope, actually.

21

Final Fantasy Remake

Time to finish this one in time for the new one to come out. What a brilliant remake this is, and what a testament to what remakes ought to be. The conceptual brilliance of taking a beloved game and changing it to make something new out of the parts as a remake is remarkable. Just total lack of concern for the audience and the clutched pearls involved and the perfect antidote to the pixel remakes of old FF games.

22

Strange Journey and Final Fantasy 6

Revisit some classics? You bet I will, caller.

23

Kingdom Hearts Collection

I was talking to my friend about this a lot and I want to play these games in part to put together a full explication of the plot, but also to engage with what I think is maybe one of the last times we’ve seen corporate synergy built out of fear of total media collapse. Disney nor Squeenix would do this today, and that it exists with weird massive swings and misses, that it can’t be brushed away because of a lasting legacy among players, that’s worth looking at. That’s something that belongs in a book.

24

12 Sentinels

One more visual novel since this is one everyone’s told me to play a million times.

25

Guilty Gear: Strive

Maybe. Or it’ll be one of the UNIST games or the new Tekken or something. But I want to have some fun competing and losing against people and I think this is the year. This can take the place of when I used to practice an instrument — repetition and slow improvement. Something therapeutic about that too huh….

26

These got smaller as I went along not because I was tired, but because after the expulsion of feeling up top, I found I was kind of empty. That’s concerning on one level, but finding some sort of blank slate where I can create and enjoy myself underneath all that tangled angst is something wonderful. Early this year, I’m flying without a net a bit as Liv will be busy taking on her well deserved life for a bit, but I think I’ll make it work. There will be Danganronpas and perhaps some anime and guests to be sure.

But I think there will also be writing and streaming and good stuff like that too. Part of being purposive is having goals, after all, and part of going easy on myself is not instantly knowing I will fail in these goals. That’s a bit of a dialectic problem, but I do love that as you all probably know by now.

There’s also non-dialectic thought about purposiveness from our old friend Immanuel Kant. It’s from his best work, the third critique on beauty, which is his best because he realizes midway through he’s pursued an impossible project and it’s beautiful to see him have to change his priors midway through. He’s convinced he has this sense of sublimity and beauty and that beautiful things must have purpose, while sublimity is the world of the divine. Ultimately, though, he can’t ever figure out where purpose begins and ends, and he has to concede that the sublimity he holds in awe (which is to say fear and wonder) is not easily distinguished from the reaction one has to wonderful art. Old Kant has to grapple with the fact that the rational, practical purpose driven life collapses into the mess of wonder and joy.

And I guess I do too! But writing this made for a better New Year’s celebration than simply ruminating on the things I wasn’t happy about this year. So, all together, gather round for the final and first affirmation:

To the people I’ve hurt this last year and the ones before, I apologize unreservedly and hope that our paths meet for me to make amends. To the people who loved me and who I have loved, thank you for making the whole project worthwhile. To the people who listened and read and engaged, I hope you’ll stay with us reviews and ratings notwithstanding. To everyone we lost or who is ailing this year, I hope you find peace and health as it is possible.

And to quote the great trans ally and poet Geoff Rickley: kiss hard on the lips and swear: this year will be better than the last.