Disco Elysium

    At some point when I was a child, I stopped liking the ocean.

    One core memory loops in the back of my mind when I’m reminded of it; a cup given to the mercy of tides, dropped by a child that had just learned what it was like to be physically limited. He runs to catch the cup as the tides cower and cower, but he trips, falls, and stumbles. It goes and goes into a boundless, depthless ocean, until it sinks into the horizon. Over the pale yonder, he knows that the cup still exists; but it might as well not, as it no longer exists to him. And yet he is still saddened.

    We think we decide the direction that we swim; but from the get-go, the waves have pointed us in a direction, and will continue to point us in directions it thinks we should. We think we can change the waves if enough of us gather and swim; but from the get-go, the waves brought us together, and the ocean is too vast to truly change regardless; and said change will only last through until our lifetimes; who knows whether the lives of those thousands of years removed from us will be affected by our actions now? Who knows if our descendants won’t just change the ocean to how it used to be, or to something different entirely?

    My first-time playing Disco Elysium was soon after its release; however, at the time, I felt that the game was beyond me. It was a piece of my puzzle that did not have a place within me yet; I needed to be in a place where its lesson could be understood fully. I left the game unfinished, not soon after I started. I was, in few words, too young.

    I picked it up again soon after I bought my Steam Deck; the game seemed like a perfect fit for the console, so I thought about giving it another shot, many years later. Ironically enough, I was close to the same place physically that I was when I first tried it; my hometown and in my parents’ new house. I was also a different person, having completed two years of college in another country by that point.

    Mentally, I was weak; my mind found itself a conundrum which it could not solve, and in this case, could not come to terms with. It simply comes with age: I struggled with accepting my role in this world. There is no greater plight to humanity than how it can know its incompetence, how it can know its own uselessness in a fabricated “grand scheme”. The knowledge of a world outside of the one we know personally is both our greatest gift and curse. It tricks us into believing that it’s something we can change for the better, but most of all it makes us aware of how small we actually are.

    “Things down here are a mess. Someone really ought to do something about it.”

    The heart of Revachol seems echo this sentiment to all who play it. It seems strange that the only quest that puts that sentiment into words was not included in the original cut of the game, as this questline seems to be the only one that ditches the standard political veils and historical backgrounds and almost straightforwardly tells you what Disco Elysium is supposed to be about. Why the author spent all this time building this world and crafting this storyline with these characters. Why he allowed you to learn all of this as just an amnesiac alcohol-addicted middle-aged divorced detective.

    Coming to grips with reality is acceptance of the fact that we cannot exist beyond ourselves so long as we continue to exist in the here and now. We must accept the small or large roles that we were given in our respective worlds; we must swim among the waves to retain our individuality. While we may be aware of worlds beyond that we cannot see or experience, to us, our immediate existence should be the only one that matters. Becoming the waves means ceasing to be an existence; it means becoming part of the authority that drives the world, leaving your own world behind, for your existence to be forgotten by your loved ones; it means becoming a piece of water in a vast, vast ocean, only able to look at those who still swim in it.

    And, in the end, regardless of what we choose or who we are, what awaits us all is our breaths giving out; we will then close our eyes, and sink to the depthless, dark unknown.

    Recently, I visited the ocean again, the first time in many years.

    I never grew to fear it; I think the ocean, despite what it represents to me, is beautiful. It brings out our fear of the unknown, but similarly shows us that life exists in every corner, every depth, no matter how dark. Even after we sink to the deepest part of it, there will still be some semblance of life around us. We will never truly be alone, even when we seem to be so.

 

Leave the Rabbit-Hole: Escaping the Discontinuation of the Self

    Once, I got caught reading on my phone. I don’t even remember what I was reading at the time, but it didn’t seem particularly relevant or life-changing in the moment either. It was probably some timewaster, something to make the day end so I could go home and actually experience a life worth living. At some point, I think every high school student has had a thought like that. We constantly wonder why we go to school when we know full well the answer to the question. It’s a futile exercise because systems generally just aren’t tailored to individuals; the end-result, ironically, is that the education system isn’t tailored to anyone at all.

    I’m sorry if you think that you were “made for school”, but you were really just tricked by good grades. Arbitrary numbers derived from tests made by teachers that may or may not have taught you the subjects in the most efficient way or in a way that only a majority or minority understood. Regardless, somebody, somewhere, is going to fall through the cracks. And it’s probably not their fault.

    You’re probably expecting me to say that I fell through the cracks, and that was the moment I broke. In reality, I was coasting. The most coasting that a man has ever coasted. The most average grades ever. Simply passing. Existing in the most exist way possible. I could study for a test and pass. I could not study for a test and still pass. So at that moment, I wasn’t paying attention. I didn’t need to pay attention, but mostly I just didn’t want to.

    That teacher never sat right with me, ever since our class met him at the start of our second year. The girls always loved him, he had charisma. I don’t say that to imply that I pegged him as a creep, because he wasn’t and still isn’t. I just didn’t like the way he taught a classroom. Every time he’d say something it always stunk in a certain way, like if I dug deep enough I’d find out it was bullshit.   

    And I say that because it was true. I did. On some day I don’t care to remember on something that really doesn’t matter anymore. In fact, the next day when he mentioned that thing again, still in my second year, I challenged him. We had a little spat. Long story short, way to confirm my pre-conceived notions on the type of person he was.

    This may sound a little weird, but I only paid attention to teachers who I liked. It was a pure and honest show of respect, a recognition of their authority. They were doing a good job. They deserved my attention. If that sounds haughty to you, it’s because it is. But for the teachers, the real teachers, having students that genuinely paid attention to their work and recognized their work as meaningful meant a lot to them. So I showed that, and so did a lot of the other students. We shot the shit with our teachers plenty of times, talking about things that we probably shouldn’t given our relationships. It was a good time.

    So as he pointed me out in the middle of his lecture, I’m not going to lie to you, it felt a bit personal.

    And it wasn’t just because he knew who I was, and he probably didn’t like me either.

    I wasn’t paying attention to his lecture, but I was still paying attention to the classroom. I knew what my fellow colleagues were doing, especially the ones in my direct vicinity. Always be aware of your surroundings. It’s important.

    God forbid I get a little mad when I know there’s two guys in deep sleep right behind me and two people on their phones right next to me.

    Actually, I was a lot mad. You ever get so angry that it feels like the devil himself is squeezing your heart, telling you he won’t let go until you do something about this? But it wasn’t the devil, it was the justiciar in your blood, the moral paladin in your faith. You’ve been wronged, you must fight, or else you’ll carry this for the rest of your life.

    So I fought.

    One sentence and any whispering chatter from the other students immediately halted. I didn’t say anything bad, I just responded. The room gave a collective, silent “oh, shit”. And then he also responded.

    The rest happened very fast.

    Not to toot my own horn, but God damn it I gave him the most lexical beating he had ever seen in his life. Metaphorically gave him the nastiest left uppercut to right-hook combo, Apollo-style. I’m telling you; the only reason he has any dignity left is because the bell saved him.

    Immediately after he left the classroom, I got pushback from half the class. That was fine, I expected it, and held my ground. Mentally, I was preparing for the inevitable; they all knew I’d get called to the director’s office, it was just a matter of when.

    I got that call minutes after.

    I won’t drag this on for much longer, but the point is that the director actually took my side. Thank God for her. So this blows over, it only comes up from time to time when I’m talking to my high school friends. And come to find out, the rest of the teachers were told this story in the teachers’ lounge, by him, but none of them really believed him once they heard I was on the other end.

    So what was the point of this?

    Many times when media, especially fictional, wants to tackle subjects like the micro relations between students and students or students and teachers, it tends to underestimate both sides.

    By blowing up the student, they underestimate the humanity, the rational thinking, the logic of the student. It portrays the relations between them as a “pouring forth” of their psychological problems, a constant reflection of their deep-rooted issues, and/or as pure vehicles of emotion, taken by whims without the slightest impulse control or thought. The student is a point the author is making, and that is the role they serve. In the same way children are seen as malleable, to an amateur author a student is seen as a puppet.

    And in the same manner, teachers are the ones who attempt to control the student puppet. The result is an oversimplification of authority; they are once puppets, now mouthpieces for the society they speak for; puppets that have been taken from the author and were molded to fight against that which he believes.

    The author believes that he is there to free the puppet from the strings that hold them; he gives them the freedom that they internally desire in a system that does not seem to want them to have it. In reality, he too is holding them by his own strings, fighting against other puppets that he wrote to be under someone else’s control, but are still under his as well. It is, and has always been, a one-man puppet show.

    I tell this story because one such author may be inclined to believe that it was a case of a student fighting back against the authorities that hold him, those same authorities that may have burned him in the past. He holds deep-seated contempt against these figures and this is pervasive in his life, through a backstory that we don’t know, and he let free of his emotions because he has no impulse control.

    The truth is much harsher; the student and the teacher have always been the same. The plight of the cynic in his view of education is to think that the teacher is an authority at all; the reality is that even the true authority in this scenario is held by a standard above them. But the true authority in this scenario does exist, and they do act. The cynic does not see authority past the teacher, does not believe in the authority past the teacher, nor does he oftentimes recognize there is authority past the teacher.

    But the author will never see himself or recognize himself as the cynic; he will constantly peddle himself as the believer in the child, in his delusion a saviour for those too young to understand the truths of the world. In our reality, his message will resonate only with those like himself; children as old as he is, bitter, who once felt themselves wronged by the world, but refused to seize their own, and now wander the real world, using that burden as a shield from maturity; and children who are being wronged by the world, and do not recognize that he speaks to them the same way their teachers speak to them.

Crossing the Spider-Verse, or why Miguel O'Hara is Wrong

    On occasion, time travel movies, time travel logic, or multiverse logic will make the rounds because of some popular piece of fiction. Many moons ago it was Back to the Future, and more recently Avengers: Endgame. A bit of a running theme in the popularity of these works is that to lack thinking of the specifics is to enjoy the movie. In both the cases mentioned, I'd say that's very accurate. It's almost a necessity of your expectation. Into the Spider-Verse can, in some realm, also be considered one of those movies. This is mostly due to a lack of focus on the spider-verse concept, and instead a mostly grounded story that centered around Miles Morales's origin story.

    Across the Spider-Verse immediately differs from these aspects, as in some ways the meta narrative is the concepts of the multiverse itself. There are many pieces divulged to us by the characters on how the multiverse works; in fact, much of the second half of the movie centers around the main character's emotional force challenging these ideas. By extension, the movie almost makes explicit that Miguel O'Hara and the Spider-People are working on some sense of logic as to how the Spider-Verse works; canon events are detectable, they must occur, and these canon events build webs between the different universes. If too many canon events are stopped, webs will be broken, and eventually the Spider-Verse web will collapse on itself.

    But I say some sense of logic precisely because the logic itself is inconsistent. To talk about why, it's important to dive into the concept of free will.

Forced Fatalism

    Firstly, it's important to establish that the narrative that Miguel O'Hara and the Spider-People purport is a forced fatalistic perspective. I say forced because Canon Events can be stopped, although, in their belief, stopping them will have drastic consequences. Thus, they must be forced to occur by the Spider-People.

    This perspective is evidenced by Miguel O'Hara's own personal origin story; he moved to a universe where his alternate self was dead, but his family was still living. By living in a universe that wasn't his own for too long, it caused the entire universe to get culled. It's important to note that the visuals demonstrated in this scene are of the universe experiencing many glitches.

    Miguel O'Hara then says that Miles is a "mistake". The spider that bit him was meant to bite someone else in another universe; in essence, he was never meant to be Spider-Man, and his universe is the origin of all these mistakes.

    I have a couple of proofs as to why this perspective is flawed:

    Proof 1: Within universe logic, this anecdote can already be broken down as insufficient evidence for his perspective; when characters visit other universes, they not only glitch themselves, but cause their surroundings and what they touch to glitch. These phenomena are relatively unrelated to Canon Events; the cause of Miguel O'Hara's alternate universe to cull was his prolonged existence there, not the halting of Canon Events.

    Proof 2: We also already know from the start of Across the Spider-Verse that, as long as people from alternate universes leave, then the universe will have no further consequence. More importantly, the actions from the Spider-People of other universes are incorporated into the canon of that universe, or at least, there are no "realigning" events where history is rewritten to where they never existed in that universe. Time just moves on like normal.

    Proof 3: Miles Morales's universe discovered and interacted with the multiverse without any outside interference. What this means is that even if the fatalistic perspective were true, then Alchemax discovering the multiverse and bringing the spider from another universe is a part of the canon of Miles's universe. Miles is not a Spider-Man by mistake; it was supposed to happen in his universe. Miguel O'Hara slips up in his assessment; by implying that Miles is a mistake, he is also implying that Alchemax discovering the multiverse on their own was a mistake, thereby championing that Alchemax had a choice. Fatalism doesn't allow for choice; events are predetermined and inevitable.

Compatibilism

    Now, it's important to mention that, in my belief, the Spider-Verse works under a compatibilist perspective; the other, imaginary choice is there; however, determinism is true, thus only one choice will actually happen. If none of the universes interacted with each other, then Canon Events as they are named would always happen as per determinism.

    The "mistake" would come from the fact that both Miguel O'Hara's universe and Miles Morales's universe had a deterministic chain of events that eventually led them to break causality itself; by literally interacting with other chains of causality (universes), they would be able to change Canon Events. As long as alternative universe elements are present or were present in a universe, then the imaginary choice can become the actual choice. 

    In other words, the chain of determinism for that universe has been altered.

    But the question then becomes this: so what? As far as the Spider-People know, there is no entity that enforces a chain of determinism to a universe. Miguel O'Hara's anecdote is likely to be the cause of an entirely different effect, as shown previously. Miles and Gwen's band will make the choices necessary to alter the chain of determinism in Miles's universe. But as long as they leave Miles's universe afterwards, then there is no known consequence. Time will move normally, as it had done in the time skip between the events of Into the Spider-Verse and Across the Spider-Verse.

Remaining Threads

     I purposefully left out some mentions in the movie as their flaws didn't pertain to the argument behind this, and they can be broken too easily. I'll answer them here:

    Black Hole in Spider-Man India After Halted Canon Event: The black hole was very likely to not be caused by the halting of a Canon Event, but by The Spot and his appearance in Spider-Man India. The events that led to the Canon Event were caused by The Spot in the first place, an entity that exists outside of Spider-Man India's universe. This is also further evidenced by the fact that the black hole looks and spreads the exact same way as The Spot's holes do. Miguel O'Hara mentions this as being "a consequence of stopping the Canon Event", but it is somewhat apparent to the viewers that the information is not entirely correct.

    The Spot: The Spot exists because the collider was stopped in Into the Spider-Verse. It could be said that The Spot was created because the chain of determinism for Miles's universe was altered; however, when tracing back the events as The Spot does, he mentions that the original collider experiment that brought the irradiated spider from another universe was the beginning. Alchemax's experiments were part of the original chain of determinism for Miles's universe, and they had no external interference from another universe. There were two possibilities here:

    1 (Imaginary). Miles and the band fail to stop Kingpin and the collider; The Spot is never created. Glitches become rampant as alternate universe entities exist in a universe that isn't theirs; Miles's universe gets culled ala Miguel O'Hara's anecdote.

    2 (Altered Chain of Determinism). Miles and the band stop Kingpin and the collider explodes; The Spot is created.

    In this case, the imaginary choice was always imaginary; the altered chain of determinism was always going to happen. In some ways, it could be said that using "altered chain" here is incorrect, as it may well be the original chain for Miles's universe, but I choose "altered" here as it involves multiverse interference through the irradiated spider and the other Spider-People.

Conclusion

    To be honest, I don't even believe the writers were thinking about this as deeply as I am; Miles's conviction is, as mentioned previously, emotional in nature. He is "just doing his own thing" and disregarding the consequences. The point of this post was more of a hypothetical as to how the writers may have subtly demonstrated that Miles is not only emotionally correct in his conviction, but also accidentally logically correct. A proper and true exercise in over-analyzation. Whether any of what I said is going to be further elaborated on in Beyond the Spider-Verse, or whether I'm going to be proven completely incorrect will be revealed in 9 months time. I can't fucking wait.

Snow Crash

          “Facebook can try and design the metaverse all they want, but the technology isn’t there yet and they can’t even draw legs.” Ok sure, that’s all true, but what the fuck is the metaverse supposed to be in the first place?

Snow Crash. I came upon it first by mere chance after a friend had mentioned it. I briefly glanced at the synopsis and only one thought took over my mind at that moment: “Holy shit, Nakazawa ripped off Snow Crash and wrote I/O.” Honestly, I don’t really blame myself for thinking that given that a lot of the worldbuilding elements seemed very similar, but this proved to be a crucial mistake. For nearly a year I set myself expectations that this novel would be the near the level of that beloved visual novel.

Once I finally picked up the book, a nearly 35 Canadian dollar hardcover with a 30% off holiday discount, using a gift card that I received after one of the most chance happenings and biggest acts of kindness that I will ever chance upon, the thirteenth anniversary edition was in my hands, a book I fated to be etched into my heart and forever stored in my bookshelf until I died. I opened it for the first time fifteen minutes ‘til six in the evening; the sun had long gone since fallen, though it was never visible anyway. Cold winter clouds had covered it ever since I awoke that morning; a direct scripture from God telling me to stay inside. Unfortunate for Him, however, nothing energizes me more. Sunny days are today a mere farce; they are only used for telling people to go outside rather than being the indicator of the availability of the outside. All the entertainment in a landlocked North American city such as this one is housed indoors, unless you’re brave enough to challenge the bourgeoisie sewage-infested waters of the river that runs through it. Two rundown malls, two overpriced trashy nightclubs, and one mall-cum-theater is all you have. And out of all movies I could’ve chosen, I chose what could only be described as a pretentious Oscar-bait waste of time. Thankfully it was over rather quickly, but unfortunately for me even the little time making the quick purchase of the book in question made me miss the bus.

This wouldn’t have normally been a problem, as the buses run every thirty minutes except for Saturdays. It was Saturday.

An hour sat on a windowsill with nothing but the low humming of the ATMs behind me and the inconsistent pitter-patter of the rain as it constantly chaotically shifted from light snow to light rain. I opened Snow Crash and fully immersed myself.

But frankly, I just couldn’t. The first chapter immediately started with some of the most edgy narration I had read in recent memory. It was corny, and took some getting used to, and while endearing to some, I couldn’t get into it without internally feeling distaste. For all that the book is worth in terms of influence, and for what genres it supposedly captures, Snow Crash is, by all means, a glorified young adult novel. For the sake of clarity, this is fully derogatory.

At this point, I had to close the novel. Whether it was because my internal clock had realized the bus was coming soon or because the novel had left me so speechless in its initial chapter, I do not know. The entire ride home, a whopping 20 minutes, was spent messaging a long-time friend who was also reading the novel but was further along than I was.

“It’s satire on the cyberpunk, it was a popular thing when the novel came out. Don’t take it too seriously.”

            I arrived home and undressed; the room much chillier than the hallway. I had left the door closed because of some nonexistent security issue, causing my own frigid demise. I slipped under my covers and took out Snow Crash again. Book in hand, I refused to open it again, staring at my broken expectations as if they were shards of glass, stabbing me under my comforter. Slowly, I took them out one by one, knowing that if I opened this book without removing them, they’d only continue to dig into me further the more I read.

            The rest of the book followed much more of the same. I was only able to keep reading because I had refocused my perspective; knowing that this was a more satirical take on cyberpunk, it felt worthless to focus on the technical details of the story. But at the same time, it was difficult to ascertain what parts of the narrative Neal Stephenson wanted me take seriously, and which parts he wrote as satire. The worldbuilding, for example, seemed so disconnected and sporadic. Getting a full picture of this post-hyperinflation America seemed almost impossible as he failed to describe specific locations, the distances of the territories, or even the exact specifics within them. Stephenson wanted to give the reader a vague idea/description of these territories so they can stereotype them however they please. Throw the reader a name like “Mr. Lee’s Greater Hong Kong” and make them assume it’s just “Chinese stuff” without regarding the subculture within the community, the differences between actual Hong Kong, endless questions about how the future has affected this culture and space, etc. etc. etc. Obviously, this was “satire”. But when it becomes part of the main plot, does it stay satire? How am I supposed to take the plot seriously when Mr. Lee himself exists and is an actual person? Forget Mr. Lee, this happens to nearly everything. The Metaverse? Still barely any idea on what it’s supposed to be, and it was why I knew about the book in the first place. It was probably a very interesting idea at the time, but it’s not nearly developed enough to be worth a damn. Like everything else, it gets vague descriptions and is mostly used as a plot device. Any specifics are only specified to be used as plot device.

If Snow Crash is satire,

            then Snow Crash is a bad satire.

            If Snow Crash is serious,

            then it’s just not that good.

            And this juxtaposition continued until the book ended. I could go on about the problems of the narrative and writing itself (like how for the whole book a fifteen-year-old is constantly sexualized, leading up to a full-blown detailed sex scene between her and a grown man), but overall, when you have this massive of a tonal issue that it does not stop until the very last word of the book, and is stuck to every part of the plot, characters, and worldbuilding, then specific analysis is no longer necessary. It just becomes the problem and the only problem. At the very least, I can give Snow Crash credit for staving off my boredom in its clearly researched and well-thought out Sumerian connections.

            So, I closed the book for the last time, likely in the exact same position as I had restarted it days prior. My expectations had not just been blown into pieces, but thoroughly disintegrated into a fine, inoffensive dust. Knowing that this would stay in my bookshelf for years was no longer a source of endearment and love but a reminder of bad financial decisions that I would likely continue to make into the future. But it a love lost is a love strengthened. I/O has been one of my favourite visual novels ever since I read it, and the more I think about it the more I believe it may be the favourite. Discovering Snow Crash could’ve been the inception of it excited me, as this book could’ve been as good or even better, but knowing that I/O really was original makes me appreciate it as a piece even more. An I/O reread is in order for sure, but I’ll likely never touch Snow Crash again lest it be to sell it off to some other unfortunate sucker.