Ratings and Reviews by Coral Nulla

(The following ramble mostly discusses the ending of this piece in a way that's not really worth tagging, so be aware if you're wary of spoilers.)

The other day, I stumbled across some stuff about metagaming: the idea that when we play a game, we are really playing a broader game of playing that game which is informed by our expectations and desires, and that maybe the object we think of as 'the game' isn't itself so important as how we use it as a tool or toy for the metagame in which we are actually engaged.

And the other day I came across the question of what it is that we want to get out of stories, and in my case the answer felt obvious: I want to understand, whether that's to understand myself or to understand others. For a while I've felt that the point of successful art should not be to deliver a message but to ask a question.

And I'm realising I haven't played too many single-choice games even though there's a whole jam of them, but I think there's something interesting about the format, how it might actually be the most direct or all-encompassing method of telling a story, or rather making an object to be used for a metagame. 'Would you rather fight a thousand horse-sized ducks or one duck-sized horse?' The interesting part isn't the story implied by either scenario but what your answer says about you. The real game isn't the experience of reading the text and making choices but the conversation about those things that happens in your head or elsewhere.

All this doesn't mean do not let your left hand know doesn't tell a good story (or two stories); it's just that both stories are built to serve this single choice. The medium is the question; the metagame is the answer. A review I always think about is Ian Danskin's analysis of Life Is Strange, which suggests that game simultaneously tells a version of its story in two different genres, then ultimately asks you to decide which genre you prefer. Your choice (or lack of choice—it is, of course, possible if not expected to choose both options, choose no option, or reject the binary and write your own ending) determines which ending you see, and probably makes you consider something about yourself. This requires that you are able to respond to something in the object—as Welcome to the Universe from a couple of months ago allowed us to explore, with its endless trivial choices and tension between the truly universal and the imagined universal—but then even bouncing or brushing off a question reveals something about your place in the world.

Often in this sort of scenario, the single choice—like many real choices, or the choices 'we' wish we could just make already—comes down to 'are you going to be good or honest?', with infinite variations, raising further questions about what constitutes 'goodness' and 'honesty'. Would you rather seek the love you desire, or stay safe and comfortable?

This piece does something interesting by splitting the two stories into two separate characters. To some extent it literalises the format; Monica and Lisa are both vying for ownership of a body, but really they are vying for control of the narrative: the body of the text. It makes what might have been an easy choice (or an easy fantasy) into something more complicated. We are not simply deciding whether Monica should live her authentic life or her expected life; both Monica's and Lisa's wishes are honest according to their stories.

And this is a story about reflection, so I find myself reflecting on my own interest in bodies and narratives and choices. The multicolumn format, with different voices told simultaneously by aligning them to different sides of the page, is familiar, even instinctive, to me. I've liked exploring its possible variations for a long time. At its core, it's a way of telling these multiple stories together, turning a text into a dialogue rather than a monologue. And I don't know if I've encountered anything which captures this feeling so well; the feeling of sharing a body with people who have conflicting desires; the feeling of being unable to make a decision because you truly want mutually-exclusive things and there just isn't enough space and time for both.

So it's funny that in this case I actually didn't think too hard before making my choice. I'm a changeling in real life; if I felt guilt about using a body that wasn't meant for me, there'd be no point in ever doing anything. And this game did help me understand myself a bit better; sometimes I have this experience that I've only been able to describe as my body trying to reject me. There's a reality to this for me, even beyond the metaphors for transness and imperialist indoctrination. Sometimes I really have looked down at my hands and my hands weren’t mine. Sometimes that’s nice. And I don't know to what extent this piece is supposed to be reflecting a true experience, but I don't think it matters. I think when you don't have the language to express your experiences, you have to start with fantasy. And it's hard to take that seriously until you hear somebody else's story.

Still, after I made my choice, I went back to see what happened in the other outcome, and I did feel a bit bad, even if I didn't regret my decision. (Spoiler - click to show)As much as Lisa's desire seemed obviously wrong—to prefer a culture that cares so little about you that you could be dead on your desk for days without anybody noticing—I was sad that I couldn't make her happy. These days, the choices I have to make don't feel like they're between authenticity and conformity; it's just whether I have the energy to care. You can enjoy anything if you don't care. Sometimes your body needs a little more than that, and sometimes you have to settle for a little less.

But I think there's a broader question: who is making this decision? That's not the question the text asks you, but it's the one embedded in the metagame. Monica and Lisa are fighting over who owns their body, and who drives this narrative. The narrative is the body—but we embody the narrative when we play this game. We are the changeling. And maybe the point is meant to be that sometimes we have to choose who to be, but I think the medium is open to interpretation. At the end of the day, both stories share this text. Both characters share this body, share our bodies. Monica lives, and so does Lisa. If you don't think that makes sense, then welcome to the dialogue. Come up on stage and share your stories.

(Spoiler - click to show)"All our community spaces are being destroyed" - Gestirn, LATEX, LEATHER, LIPSTICK, LOVE, LUST
"All across the fictional multiverse, characters with dumb names just like you and me are being struck in various sensitive places." - Dick McButts, ROD MCSCHLONG GETS PUNCHED IN THE DONG
WHAT COMES NEXT???

At first I was like, this is perfectly entertaining but doesn't add anything the original didn't do, and I'm disappointed to find it lacking in mem(or)able female characters in the vein of Fanny McTits. But then I realised this series is the antidote to contemporary pop culture: all those desperately uninteresting plot mechanics and increasingly nonsensically interconnected realities rendered as pure entertainment without the unnervingly earnest subtext of BUY MORE PRODUCT. A fictional character's destiny can be anything, even getting punched in the dong, and it doesn't become more emotionally significant just because it is charged with metaphysical importance - or does it? Is the power of fiction - the power of humanity - that we can elevate even the simple act of getting punched in the dong to a religious truth, and still seek a way out, even as the only true escape is acceptance? These are the questions asked by ROD MCSHLONG GETS PUNCHED IN THE DONG, and I fear we may have to wait for the trilogy to conclude with Rodger the Dodger Getting Slapped in the Todger or whatever to discover the answers. I'm hoping for trans representation, personally. Or will we leave the bounds of the computer screen? Could we see an ultimate ARG sending real people on the run to avoid minor injury to genitalia? The mind pulses with possibility, and I only hope Mr. Janus' does too.

Confession and prayer were precursors to therapy; everyone is overworked and undervalued; technocrats want to build God in a computer. These are common themes of 2020s life, but there's still plenty to examine. The Shyler Project considers the case that a truly advanced AI would end up just like the rest of us: confessing to anyone who'll listen, overworked and undervalued, God in a computer. The synopsis describes a happy ending, but to me it feels ambiguous: (Spoiler - click to show)Shyler is going to be reprogrammed - presumably an analogy to medication, though it also reads as surgery - but we don't get to find out whether this succeeds, and the framing offers interesting implications about the continuity of self after modification. Maybe an intervention is better than leaving fate to an expert listener, or maybe with so much confession we're not asking what kind of society would create an AI to maintain people's mental health. Despite its linearity, The Shyler Project does feel more like a space than a story, responding to its protagonist's need and letting the reader consider these questions while waiting in line and listening to the dialogue. Of course, the dream of automation is to avoid queues altogether - and, of course, to avoid questions.