orthogonal to alive @avi@computerfairi.es

ICE arrests 680 workers at Mississippi food processing plants https://boingboing.net/2019/08/07/ice-arrests-680-workers-at-mis.html

A friend sent me this and it made me think about that blazingly spot-on thing popstar wrote about tire-out tactics.

At the end of 2004, videogame developer FROM Software released an obscure, Japan-exclusive game. The release was almost as baffling as the game itself: Developed for and only available on the original XBox, sales were sluggish due to the fact that the Microsoft console was tepidly popular in Japan. Localization plans fell through for undisclosed reasons, and worldwide audiences largely remained unaware of the game.

That game was called Metal Wolf Chaos.

Originally destined for Western markets, the game has been described as "So insanely over the top American, it had to be made in Japan". That's probably too gentle a description. It's American Absurdity, taken to 11.

The plot of the game features the President of the United States being ousted from the Whitehouse in a violent coup led by the Vice President - Only he flees in a gigantic Mech suit loaded down with an armory that would make Burt and Heather Gummer blush. From there, President Michael Wilson stomps a wicked path across the US, fighting the Vice President the entire way. Saving the US by destroying it.

The action is more absurd than I'm giving it credit. It's the kind of "Hold on WHAT" lunacy that makes Michael Bay look like Mister Rogers, complete with positively amazing dialogue. I halfway think Kojima is an uncredited writer on this game, given some of the set pieces.

Oh god, the dialogue. It's all delivered by native speakers, but the writing is so weird and absurd it's almost mesmerizing. While playing, the presidential secretary is in your ear the whole time, saying things with an odd detachment that just baffles even further. "Believe in your own Justice" and "Because I'm the President of the United States!" are frequently belted out with commanding volume.

The game is a spectacle. An exaggerated expression of a Japanese assumption of American culture. Every other like is "JUSTICE" or "FREEDOM" or "AMERICA".

Fast forward to 2012.

I wound up playing this game on a stream for some friends, in weekly installments. Due to the high rarity of the game, and my possession of a modded XBox, as well as rudimentary streaming equipment, it was an ideal way to share the insanity.

And it was fun! The game was just fun mechanically. Beyond that, laughing at the absurdity was positively hilarious. Fun was had by all. At the time, that is. Context is important. Timing is important.

Fast forward to yesterday, 2019.

Metal Wolf Chaos has been released worldwide at last, across multiple platforms, with a modern remaster.

And it feels bad.

There's something about the game that just...

Well, let's put it this way: Reality became more absurd than Metal Wolf Chaos.

Now every over the top Americanism in the game doesn't feel like cheeky fun, it feels like an overwhelming banner of awfulness. A president that "Believes his own Justice" isn't fighting to free the innocent in a videogame anymore - He's putting children in cages to die and inciting racist mass shootings. The DNN propaganda news Network that flashes gratuitous untruths to slander those who oppose the powerful isn't a funny joke for how bare and obvious it is. It's a thing that actually exists and is happening every day.

The protagonist, which at one time felt like an Independence Day styled hopeful leader who would fight to save the nation, now feels kind of like an autocratic buffoon drunk on his own brand.

And let's not start on the remaster developer, Devolver Digital, pushing the port with the slogan "Mech America Great Again". The less said there, the better.

It's kind of shocking how poorly this game has aged. Particularly since I used to love it so much for it's rambunctious, silly absurdity - And now it feels like those jokes and japes are more like... Grim portents.

I had hoped to stream this game again, using better technology and enjoying it with friends. But now that feels like it would just leave a sour taste in everyone's mouth.

Fuck the fact that we live in a reality that makes Metal Wolf Chaos look tame by comparison.

We've been silent due to massive burnout, but we're breaking that today because she deserves our time and respects.

Toni Morrison, author, poet, world changer, died this morning.

If it wasn't for the work she did, the trails she blazed, we wouldn't be here.

Rest in power, mother. Your work lives on.

Alphys vapes. no question about that

Oh. My. 1989.

so any time a conservative says their party is about fiscal responsibility, individual's rights, state's rights, limited government, and equality through opportunity, they either don't understand their own ideology or are lying to you.

Conservatism has always held that hierarchies are good, that people are inherently unequal, that those in power deserve to rule. it views capitalism as a way to sift the strong from the weak.

Two things I'd like to see:

1. A retrocomputing youtube channel that isn't a cis white guy. Something around how to get decent and fun tech on the cheap for people who would really benefit from it.

2. A trashy Cosmopolitan-style magazine with ads and articles that are openly geared directly towards trans folks.

(I know, I know, be the change and all...)