This writing sample is from a grant application I prepared for Feeding America West Michigan. The grant secured $100,000 for Gather2Grow and the hiring of an Agency Partnership Specialist. To maintain confidentiality, some details have been adjusted while preserving the overall structure and narrative quality.
What does your organization do?*
Use this space to explain what your organization does. What is your organization's mission? What core services do you provide to those who participate in your programs? (10,000 characters)
Feeding America West Michigan is a food bank that serves 40 of Michigan’s 83 counties. Its mission is to gather and distribute food to relieve hunger and increase food security in West Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.
The food bank is a clearinghouse for resources, research, and advocacy. It coordinates with other basic needs organizations to identify circumstances on the ground and informs policymakers of food security conditions. As a partner to the Feeding America national organization, it accesses cutting-edge data to identify communities at risk of hunger. This data supports evidence-based programs administered through the food bank’s 700+ agency partners, forming a cohesive hunger-relief infrastructure across West Michigan and the Upper Peninsula. The food bank’s high-level view of the charitable food system enables it to determine where the greatest need exists and allocate resources where they will have the largest possible impact.
The need for food assistance is evident in the Northwestern Lower Peninsula. According to the Feeding America national organization, 41,493 (9%) of the region’s residents, including 12,603 (16%) of its children, currently face hunger. According to the United Way’s most recent ALICE (Asset Limited, Income Constrained, Employed) study, 39% of households in the region cannot afford basic necessities. That percentage includes 17,352 households that live in poverty and 40,685 ALICE households, whose incomes do not support their basic costs of living despite exceeding the Federal Poverty Level. Members of the latter group often turn to the food bank’s programs when in need of food assistance, as government programs such as SNAP (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) are not always an option. A single person earning minimum wage in Michigan is not eligible for SNAP; neither is a single mother of one earning $12 an hour. US costs of living — especially those related to the most essential human needs, such as those measured by the ALICE Essentials Index — have risen steadily since 1980 and skyrocketed since 2007; while wages have not kept pace. An increasing number of working people need food assistance programs to meet their basic needs.
The food bank’s programs effectively target families experiencing food insecurity: approximately 70% of the food bank’s clients live below the poverty line. In 2021, the food bank collaborated with Public Policy Associates (PPA) to conduct a study of clients’ experiences with food insecurity and their attitudes toward food bank programs. Respondents to the PPA study related some of the ways in which they needed to compromise on their own health and wellbeing to make ends meet. 63% of survey respondents indicated that, over the last year, they “bought the cheapest food available, even if [they] knew it wasn’t the healthiest option.” 55% had eaten food after its expiration date. 49% reported that at least one member of their household had unpaid medical bills. High percentages of respondents reported a need to choose between food and other essential expenses, including transportation (55%), utilities (51%), medicine or medical care (47%), and rent or mortgage (40%). The food bank’s programs serve as a stopgap for many residents in our service area, providing essential nutrition at no cost and eliminating the choice between food and other essential expenses that so many of our clients face.
Community needs dictate the implementation of our Mobile Pantries, and the food bank’s programs are responsive to these needs. 90% of respondents to the PPA study indicated a desire to eat more fruits and vegetables and 91% said they do so when Mobile Pantries make such items available to them. 54% said all or most of the fresh fruits and vegetables they eat come from Mobile Pantries. Mobile Pantries play a crucial role in filling in the gaps that federal programs leave behind. 80% of respondents to the PPA study said their SNAP benefits usually last only two or three weeks out of the month. This has only intensified in the wake of COVID-19 as grocery prices remain high, while emergency SNAP allocations have expired and stricter work requirements have been implemented on SNAP recipients.
One example of an individual who might seek assistance from the food bank is Laufey, a grandmother who, due to a recent surgery on her hands, needed to take time off from her three part-time jobs and struggled to keep food on the table for her grandchildren. Her family’s financial situation worsened after her partner lost his job; past drug convictions prevented her from applying for and receiving aid from SNAP. (Currently, Michiganders with two past drug convictions are ineligible for SNAP for life.) Fortunately, Laufey has been able to bridge this gap and fill her grocery bags at the food bank’s Mobile Pantries. “It’s a godsend,” she said.
When families are forced to sacrifice their food budget, it can have a serious impact on other aspects of their lives. Aloy, Kris, and Padmé, community school coordinators at Midgard elementary schools through the Nine Realm School Services Network, shared their stories of hosting Mobile Pantries, spending their days soothing empty stomachs with snacks, listening to kids’ concerns and connecting families in need to resources. “You can tell a student’s behavior is different if they miss breakfast in the morning,” Aloy said. “Sometimes it just takes us saying, ‘Do you want some fruit?’ and they feel better.” Padmé and Kris shared similar experiences. “A lot of the ones that would end up having to deal with the social worker or behavioral interventionist – a lot of the time, they were just looking for a snack,” Padmé said. “I’ve known families that have struggled with getting food. They’re working up to two to three jobs, but they have to pay rent, they have to pay daycare, they have to pay their bills and it’s hard. Maybe they have 20 or 30 dollars for food – and if they have five or six kids, is that enough for them?” But thanks to the food bank’s programs, Aloy said, families “can continue to keep paying other bills and saving up money for other things other than just food.”
Mobile Pantries drive many long-term, positive outcomes in the communities they are deployed in. The consistent consumption of nutritious food can lessen the prevalence of nutrition-related ailments and improve a community’s health and wellbeing, thereby reducing healthcare costs for individuals, families, and entire communities. Additionally, the program’s provision of food at no cost enables guests to spend money on other essential expenses.
The expansion of the Mobile Pantry program would help clients like Ellie, a primary caregiver for a parent, who attended a 2023 Mobile Pantry in Miller County hosted by Dawn of the Wolf Senior Services. Ellie has been receiving food from Mobile Pantries for over a year since she started taking care of her elderly father in his home as he said having access to Mobile Food Pantries “helps as a food source instead of having to go out and buy it all the time without having the funds.” Ellie further explained how her family enjoys “the fresh vegetables they get from the Mobile Pantries” and how she was “especially excited for the bison meat” she got during her most recent visit at the time.
The food bank’s programs also build connections within the local community and set a positive example for the youth participating in them. “It’s just giving back to the people who helped raise me,” said Atreus, a school staff member who recalls getting food from Mobile Pantries when he was a student at Midgard elementary. “The biggest thing is showing the kids that just because you come from this small community doesn’t mean you can’t make it big. It’s not always about being a doctor or lawyer but about giving back. I think it’s had a positive effect on the kids.”
Gather2Grow serves neighbors like Claire and her three kids, who escaped the heat on a hot mid-July day by attending Modern Library’s morning story hour. Afterwards, her kids eagerly took lunches from the librarians, who provide them daily as part of the food bank’s new Gather2Grow program. “We love the library, so it’s a good space to pick the meals up,” Claire said. “With food so expensive, it’s nice. It’s quick and easy to stop by.” Lorelai, another mom who visits the library, concurred. “It’s the best of both worlds because you get exposure to the library and books, and also get food,” she expressed. “The books feed their brains and the food feeds their minds!”
Claire, Lorelai and their kids are among the many families who need a little extra help putting food on their kids’ plates this summer. For many parents like them, the sudden loss of school meals means a bigger grocery expense—on top of other costs summer brings, like childcare. Gather2Grow aims to fill this gap. It helps ensure no kids go without lunch in the summer, mitigates hunger’s negative impacts on children, and positions them to succeed academically.
By expanding Gather2Grow throughout the Northwestern Lower Peninsula, the food bank would help many more clients like Iden, a Stars Hollow Branch librarian and mother of a 2-year-old and 5-year-old. “I went through a divorce over COVID,” she said. “Now I’m a single-income family. I just applied for [SNAP] and WIC for the first time in my life.” Iden found it difficult to ask for help by applying for food assistance, even though she believes it is worthwhile. She said she loves that Gather2Grow is “just offered,” no questions asked. Participation rates in programs such as WIC and SNAP are often far below estimated rates of eligibility due to challenging applications, or finding it difficult to ask for help through the local HHS. The food bank’s programs bypass those challenges, providing direct service to clients in our service areas without any red tape.
Description of Program*
If you are requesting support for a specific program or project (as opposed to a capital grant or general/unrestricted support), please provide a description of your program/project in the space provided.
If your request is for capital or support toward your organization's general budget, please skip this question.
10,000 characters
Half of this $100,000 grant would fund Gather2Grow. Through Gather2Grow, Feeding America West Michigan collaborates with local libraries during the summer to provide free, easily accessible, nutritious meals to children from infancy to age 18. The program is a preventative health intervention that provides meals to children at a time when other sources of food assistance, such as free or reduced lunch at school, are unavailable. Gather2Grow also promotes the development of reading habits, as the programs are hosted at libraries. The program also provides economic benefits to the community, easing the financial burden of meals during the summer months and allowing food recipients to re-allocate scarce resources for other needs.
In 2020 and prior, the food bank worked with the state of Michigan to provide summer meals through the Meet Up and Eat Up program. This arrangement posed administrative restrictions and limited access to partners, so the food bank opted to run the program independently. Thus far, the decision produced positive results and has encouraged the food bank to follow a similar course in 2022. Without the restrictions imposed by the state, the food bank can collaborate with more branches and serve a wider array of children; meal options are now more flexible, and sites can adjust their distribution schedules as needed. This increased flexibility allows the food bank to build relationships based entirely on a shared interest in ensuring children’s access to food, rather than arrangements borne out of circumstance and necessity.
The food bank regularly interviews its clients, conducting surveys and focus groups to better understand its programs’ impacts and revise them to meet community needs. In collaboration with local partners, the food bank assesses the need for and viability of its programs on a quarterly basis. Attendance data is contextualized by local partners, who share the impacts of employment changes, publicity, weather, and other factors. These figures can indicate a need to alter the program. Furthermore, data from these local food-assistance efforts are viewed in tandem with reported statistics from other agency partners and programs unaffiliated with the food bank, including the USDA and other national organizations. This analysis assists the food bank in developing a complete picture of the need in particular communities.
The food bank sustains Gather2Grow, like all its programming, through ongoing fundraising, donor cultivation, and grant support. The food bank relies on funding partners throughout Michigan to stay operational and keep its programs running. The food bank is approaching large foundations, businesses, and major donors throughout its 40-county service area for contributions.
The other half of this grant would fund a new Northwest Agency Partnership Specialist salary and benefits in addition to expanding Gather2Grow, a summer lunch program that serves youth at local libraries. The food bank’s expansion of programming throughout the Northwestern Lower Peninsula will officially begin with the Northwest Agency Partnership Specialist’s arrival, as the food bank will be able to extend its outreach to new agencies in the Northwestern Lower Peninsula: Antrim, Benzie, Charlevoix, Emmet, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, Lake, Leelanau, Manistee, Mason, Missaukee, Osceola, and Wexford Counties.
The Northwest Agency Partnership Specialist is especially crucial at this point in time because the number of meals being distributed to neighbors facing hunger in the region is low in comparison to the need. The food bank has the resources to send more food, but requires more partnerships in the region to facilitate those distributions.
Over the past year, the food bank has been seeking partners for Mobile Pantries, fixed pantries, and Gather2Grow in the Northwestern Lower Peninsula to expand programming in response to growing demand, but currently lacks the staff to perform dedicated outreach to the region. With a high volume of clients in the region, bringing in an Agency Partnership Specialist is a necessary step toward building a more cohesive network of support and collaboration in the Northwestern Lower Peninsula.
Earlier in 2023, the food bank hired a dedicated Upper Peninsula Agency Partnership Specialist for similar reasons which has proven to work quite well. Since hiring a U.P. Agency Partnership Specialist, the food bank is far better able to attend community events in the U.P., communicate clearly – and in person – with its partner agencies in the U.P., and has developed new partnerships at an accelerated rate. Given the proven success of the strategy, it makes sense for the food bank to hire a dedicated Northwest Agency Partnership Specialist for the same reasons: to foster connections with Northwestern communities.
Beyond fulfilling the responsibilities of an agency service specialist, the new staff member – funded through this grant – would also act as a liaison between the food bank and the communities of the Northwestern Lower Peninsula to enrich connection and collaboration between key parties, allowing the food bank to better combat food insecurity in the area. The Northwest Agency Partnership Specialist will address the food bank’s goal of interfacing with clients more directly, speaking to a qualitative and quantitative understanding of who we serve. In turn, they would identify other necessary community partnerships with the food bank that would promote a path to self-sufficiency determined by the clients themselves. The food bank seeks a candidate with a deep understanding of nutrition, poverty reduction, and the variety of cultures within West Michigan and the Upper Peninsula.
In order to shift toward a more sustainable model for charitable food agencies, community buy-in is key to ensure a smooth transition that effectively expands levels of service in the region. The Agency Partnership Specialist would be key in cultivating such community buy-in, developing close relationships with an array of partners to ensure our plans reflect the needs of the communities we serve. By coordinating a synchronized approach to charitable food in the region through its Community Impact team, the food bank can bring for-profit grocery stores, food producers, small church pantries, and other social services organizations together to address the systemic food needs within the Northwestern Lower Peninsula community.
Although small organizations act as a first line of defense in many local communities, they often lack a coordinated approach – creating a sense of competition between external organizations or other nonprofit organizations – which is something the food bank hopes to mitigate in the Northwestern Lower Peninsula through the creation of an agency partner specialist. The Northwest Agency Partnership Specialist, along with the rest of the Community Impact team and the food bank as a whole, will work to help local organizations see each other as allies and partners with which they can collaborate since working together will nurture relationships the agency partner specialist creates and, more importantly, will allow the food bank and local organizations to better serve communities in the Northwestern Lower Peninsula.
Just last spring, the food bank created a new eight-member Community Impact team to steer the food bank’s long term strategy through initiatives that form partnerships with clients, agencies, and other community stakeholders. The food bank is the leading charitable food organization in West Michigan and the Upper Peninsula, and should be utilized to bring key stakeholders to the table in a non-contentious way. In order to do so, the food bank must prove to stakeholders that it has the best interests of their community in mind which is where the creation of a Northwest Agency Partnership Specialist comes in. Having an employee who lives in the region and is part of the community is immeasurably valuable in demonstrating the food bank’s commitment to the people who live there and willingness to listen to its partners.
Desired Impact*
Using everyday language (no jargon), please describe the impact you are trying to make for those you serve. How will you measure this impact to gauge if your efforts are successful?
5,000 characters
According to MI School Data, 52% of students in the Northwestern Lower Peninsula qualify for free or reduced lunch at school. Consequently, those who rely on the school lunch program often lack an adequate substitute during the summer months. While the federal government operates the Meet Up and Eat Up summer lunch program in many areas throughout the state, there are still many areas in the Northwestern Lower Peninsula that lack adequate summer lunch programming. Often, these are rural areas where the local school district draws students from a broad region, so even functional programs like Meet Up and Eat Up cannot reach many children facing hunger because they lack adequate transportation. The local library system in the Northwestern Lower Peninsula, in contrast, was built to be accessible to children walking or biking from the neighborhoods where they live.
Gather2Grow fills in the gaps in service left by other summer lunch programs that aren’t as accessible. It also provides educational resources for participating children, as well as an extra incentive for neighborhood children to visit the library during the summer to check out books or participate in other library programs. Many local librarians have acknowledged the program’s impact on raising child attendance throughout the summer. As the program becomes more well known in the community in its second year, the food bank has found the attendance rate at sites has been increasing dramatically – sometimes even doubling.
By increasing children’s access to food, Gather2Grow drives a number of positive outcomes. Short-term benefits include immediate improvements in an individual’s health, mood, and performance at school. In the long term, improved nutrition can lessen the prevalence of chronic, nutrition-related ailments and, consequently, drive improvements in a community’s overall health and wellbeing. Widespread improvements in health would, in turn, reduce healthcare costs for individuals and families.
Dina, a Jackson resident who leads a local Girl Scout chapter, receives support from Gather2Grow. She regularly stops at her branch to grab books and lunches for her son. Dina also picks up meals for a neighbor whose children qualify for free or reduced lunches during the school year. This neighbor commonly cares for their nieces and nephews as well, so their household is often unable to travel to the library during lunchtime. The pre-packaged meals distributed through Library Lunches to Go enable Dina to not only acquire nutritious meals while her son is home during the summer months but also ease the burden on a neighbor.
The program’s consistency and the meals’ nutritional value have also helped Joyce, a mother who brings her two daughters to their local branch every Monday. “It’s kind of our plan to check out books and grab lunches. We appreciate it,” Joyce said. “It’s nice that they’re all packaged up and they’ve got a little bit of everything. [One of my daughters] has high fructose issues, so it’s great to see she can have the stuff that’s in there.”
Adjustments to the program are based on how a community’s needs change over time and how effectively existing efforts meet those needs. In sampling data from the USDA, Feeding America national organization, as well as other national research organizations, the food bank is able to develop a high-level view of trends in food insecurity and plan our distributions accordingly.
Alongside national data, the food bank utilizes attendance details from individual distributions, statistics from local hunger-relief organizations, and client feedback collected from the food bank’s communication network. This network of information forms a robust view of both local and national trends in order to contextualize a community's needs and influence future iterations of the food banks’ programming.
Ruminations
Coruscant’s strawberry mango skies swirl in austere, sullen silence around the Jedi Council Chamber where young Skywalker awaits restlessly for Mace Windu’s return, or even a call for help over the comlink. Anakin knew Mace couldn’t face the Chancellor – or Darth Sidious, whoever he is – on his own. Unbridled fear was clouding his thoughts, Anakin was sure of that much. If Master Obi-Wan were there, he’d go on about fulfilling their duty as Jedi and possibly even a long-winded anecdote about Satine – as if stories are of any help. Anakin allows himself to collapse in his council seat and recalls his training to refocus on the Force; his heartrate gradually slows to a normal rhythm, and he can feel fresh air coursing through his body – a profound sense of calmness soon followed until a familiar voice echoes inside Anakin’s head: Palpatine.
“If the Jedi destroy me, any chance of saving her is lost. But you already know this, don’t you?”
Full of unease, Anakin jolts out of his seat and paces to the oversized window overlooking the city. Anakin’s heart fired like an ion cannon, and all he could think about was her. Anakin’s gaze pierces across the hustle and bustle of Coruscant’s crowded skies to the apartment he and Padmé shared. He could sense Padmé inside their room also staring back at him, and feeling her distress fueled the electricity caged inside Anakin’s soul, releasing intoxicating fear that swelled into an all-consuming dissonant bliss. Hauntings of his mother fading in his embrace resurfaced hungrier for revenge than ever before, and the thought of losing Padmé how he lost his mother served as the beskar encompassing his fearful rage. Nothing else matters.
Coruscant’s rays illuminate the chamber, no shadows to be seen except for the darkness cast on Anakin’s left cheek. The sun’s warmth sears into his skin, reminiscent of Padmé’s loving touch, but is unable to melt his brumal shell. Faint honking and indistinct chatter from the air travel below howls like the torment wreaking havoc inside Anakin’s soul. Succumbing to his emotions is forbidden for a Jedi, Anakin knows this, but he welcomed this depravity like an old friend. This familiar taste of poison intoxicated his whole being, and he knew there wouldn’t be going back this time. Awareness of this reality festered, feeding into his raging whirlwind of emotions, and he began to mourn the man he once was. Anakin Skywalker: friend, Jedi Knight, teacher… husband. It was only then he realized how far he’d fallen, or soon would fall, but he knew he would trade his soul if it meant Padmé would live. And that’s what he planned to do. Anakin’s eyes swell, and he dismissively glances at the ground as a team streams down his cheek. Before Anakin could leave the council chamber, he felt a presence he hadn’t felt in a long time. He tilts his head, and his eyes widen, “Qui-Gon?”
“You have grown strong and powerful just as I imagined. Why have you not accepted your destiny?”
“Master… I-”
“Remember, always be mindful of the future, but not at the expense of the moment. If you continue down this path, you will have an opportunity to restore balance but beware your heart.”
Anakin stood in silence contemplating the wisdom from his old friend. Still, Anakin was determined to help Mace any way he can and still get the answers he seeks from Palpatine; but the fiery conviction he once had extinguished at the sound of Qui-Gon’s voice. Anakin was lost, and he wasn’t sure if the Force could help him – or if words from a dead man could, either.
Air underneath the speeder swirls and the engine roars as Anakin arrives at the Senate building landing platform, practically leaping out of the speeder before it fully shuts down. Anakin’s thoughts still elude him, but he was holding onto Qui-Gon’s warning with hope that answers would become clear. Palpatine’s office doors open, and across the room Mace is towering over Palpatine who’s lying on the floor, cornered in a crescent indent in the wall adjacent to a broken window.
“You are under arrest, my Lord,” Mace threatens, unaware of Anakin’s presence until Palpatine tilts his head.
“Anakin, I told you it would come to this...”
“… you have lost.”
Before Anakin could process what’s transpiring before him, Palpatine shoots tanzanite colored lightening from his fingertips. Mace deflects the streaming electricity with his violet blade, directing the shots back to Palpatine himself causing the lightening to eat away at his face until it looks like a Hutt’s backside. Anakin could feel his rage swarming inside, but instead of feeding the storm, he turned to the Force for guidance. Through the Force he found clarity, and his chains were broken. The unrecognizable man lying helplessly wasn’t Anakin’s friend or his mentor, but a man with a Changeling for a personality who never had his best interest at heart like he once believed. This was the man who was responsible for the war and likely responsible for other calamitous events: the death of his mother, the framing of Ahsoka… Anakin could sense various echoes in the Force surrounding the Sith Lord.
The man hovering his violet blade over Darth Sidious is no peacekeeper, but a solider. Anakin hadn’t realized how far the Jedi have fallen since the war began, but now he could feel the deep roots imbalance has weaved throughout the Republic, the Senate, and the Jedi – and in Mace as he continues his attack.
“I am going to end this once and for all,” Mace declares.
“You can’t,” Anakin interjects, slowly walking towards the helpless Sith Lord. He could sense Mace studying his movements, but Anakin’s gaze was fixed on Sidious’ crazed grin. Sidious relaxes the closer Anakin gets before he swiftly leaps from a prone position over Anakin’s head. Anakin instinctively calls upon the Force to immobilize Sidious midair and abruptly skewers Sidious with his cobalt blade. Sidious’ lifeless body collapses at Anakin’s feet as the Coruscant Guards storm in the office.
“Commander, take care of the Sith Lord and send out a call for an emergency senate meeting. Skywalker, a word?”
“Yes, Master?”
“What you told me was true, and you have regained my trust. I see now that facing Sidious and your fears was actually your grand trial. It’s known the Force works in mysterious ways, and because of this test, you have not only proven you are a great Jedi, but also displayed virtues of a Jedi Master. Once the council reconvenes, I will suggest to the rest of the council we bestow the rank of Master upon you.”
Anakin smirks, “I’m… humbled, Master Windu, but I cannot accept your offer.”
Mace cocks his eyebrow and curls his lip while crossing his shoulders.
“There is another path I need to follow.”
“Another path,” Mace questions.
“Away from the order,” Anakin responds before turning away and walking out of the Chancellor’s office.
The Senate held an emergency meeting not long after the death of Palpatine, who everyone now knows was Darth Sidious: the mysterious Sith Lord orchestrating the war. Senator Amidala led the emergency meeting along with her friend, Bail Organa, to guide talks of electing a new Chancellor as well as establish communication with the Separatist Senate to reopen peace negotiations. From the Senate hallways peered Anakin Skywalker smiling at his wife as she captivated the attention of everyone in the room. Democracy wasn’t going to die today, not for a long time.
16 Years Later
The warm sun sets over the Naboo hills as the rustling wind leaves a caressing breeze lingering among two young Jedi learning what Anakin was once taught. Padmé nestles close to her husband and he wraps his arm around her, kisses her forehead, and they continue to watch as Ahsoka and Obi-Wan review saber katas with Luke and Leia. Anakin’s future is free now, but when he closes his eyes, he sees what would’ve been: the deaths, the betrayals, everything.
Sibling Shenanigans
“Testing one two three… I hope this thing’s recording. I’m Kat Tee and this is log one-one-seven. Unfortunately, I am trapped in the backseat of a van full of weirdos. You may be wondering who these weirdos are and you also might be slightly concerned for my well-being, as you should be, but I assure you, these weirdos are just my bickering siblings – nothing new.”
“Kat, could you please shut up! I can’t hear Chad over your insolent mumbling,” Veronica snaps.
“Hey, leave Kat out of this, Vee. We wouldn’t be arguing if you just made a decision already or chose to compromise… for once.”
“Really, Chad? Always gotta defend lil sis. Just because Kat’s the youngest, it doesn’t mean she has to be babied by literally everyone.”
“Uh, guys – if you would have just tuned into 99.7 like I said- “Kat sighs.
“No, we are not listening to those dumb boy bands you are obsessed with.”
Kat brings her voice recorder close to her lips and whispers, “dang, at times like this I wish this bad boy recorded more than just audio. Veronica’s eyes practically rolled into the back of her head and she looked like those zombies from The Walking Dead – no cap.”
“Cap?” Chad questions.
“Yeah, like joke – no cap is basically saying not joking or not lying,” Kat trails off and rolls her eyes.
Chad’s eyes widen and his hands go in the air like he’s being interrogated. “Look, not everyone can be as hip as Miss Kat. No cap.”
Kat chuckles and dramatically looks at her recorder as if an inanimate object has the capability of staring back in agreement. “Chad's only 20 but I swear sometimes he seems like he’s 40. I mean, the dude listens to REO Speedwagon. That says everything ya need to know.”
“Ha, about the only thing we agree on, Kitty Kat," Vee interjects. "Yea their stuff is chill, but we need something more with the times, which is why I humbly suggest – “
“Hmm let me guess, Michael Bublé on 56.4 Bublé’s Greatest Hits?” Chad mockingly bats his eyes.
“Y’all don’t understand. He speaks to my soul.”
“Oh, we understand you just have a horrible taste in guys,” Kat spews.
The recording cuts to static and a mumbled, echoey audio briefly cuts in. “Hello, future Kat here – yeah, looking back this was probably not a smart move, but it seemed like a good idea at the time… well, everything will make sense in a moment. Okay past Kat – back to you.”
A long silence plagued the environment inside the car. No one dare broke the silence for a long while until Veronica’s piercing cries echoes within the tiny moving box. Veronica whips her head so she’s facing Chad and Kat – her eyes are bloodshot red, and her mascara is streaming down her cheeks.
“Michael was different, okay? We just had different life goals and he was obsessed with playing video games or whatever.”
“You say that about all the guys, Vee,” Chad exhales an exaggerated sigh. “We can listen to REO Speedwagon on 101.2, and I’m sure one of their love songs will come on at some point. Look, we always listen to what you want to listen to because the world is always ending for you, and I think it’s time we finally listen to some REO Speedwagon. It’s my turn to pick – hell, it’s been my turn to pick for the last ten years – and I want to cash in. Besides, back in the 80s, man, that was the good music.”
“Chad, no. The only radio station we need to listen to right now is Bublé’s Greatest Hits because that is the only thing that will help me work through my breakup with Michael. And I don’t understand how y’all don’t find his voice absolutely soothing, because it is, and maybe listening to him will make y’all chill out a bit.”
“And this is why I stopped asking to listen to 99.7 hours ago,” Kat curtly confesses to her recorder. “Would it be nice to listen to Harry Styles’ silky voice and plan my next One Direction concert? Of course. Listening to so-called boy bands is good for the soul – it’s even proven in Seventeen magazine – and my sister could definitely benefit from listening to some boy bands. This effort isn’t just about Harry Styles anymore, it’s about her sanity.”
“That’s it. I’ve had it with your stupid, pointless monologue. Give me that,” Veronica hisses.
“No, wait- “
The recording abruptly ends here with a sound similar to someone crunching a bag of chips.
Kat’s hand is lingering out of the frame while her arm blocks some of the picture, her face is pinched in on itself as she fumbles around with the buttons hoping she’s pressing the right one. Kat leans back and throws her hands in the air. “Testing one two three… I’m Kat Tee and I’m coming to you with video log number 1. Yes, you heard me correctly – video log – oh, and you can see me too! Just don’t pay attention to my clothes scattered about my room, this is a good day. The last anyone heard from me was roughly 6 hours ago when my wonderful sister broke my recorder. Hey Vee, the people would like to see you,” Kat mocks, directing her attention to something off screen.
Veronica groans as she pops her face in front of the camera. “Hello.”
“Good, now get out of the way, Vee, I’m recording.”
Veronica’s eyes roll deep into her skull and she strolls out of Kat’s room.
“So yeah, after Vee broke my recorder, I took advantage of the opportunity so conveniently placed in front of me. Vee felt horrible for breaking my recorder – well, she feared mom and dad’s wrath more than anything, if I’m being honest – so she agreed to my simple terms: she had to buy be a camera – not those cheap ones, oh no, but a handycam – to help me in my pursuit of perfecting the art of videography, and I get to choose the radio station for a whole month. Can you believe it? A whole month! But that’s not the good part – I mean, seeing my lovely face in 4K is a treat in itself – but we got to listen to One Direction on the way to Best Buy. You have no idea how long it’s been since I got to listen to Harry Styles in the car. Then on the way back, I decided to take it back to the 70s with some REO Speedwagon for Chad to show my gratitude for him always having my back. That about wraps up today’s car adventures, and be sure to tune in tomorrow for another episode of… shit what do I call this? Note to future self: come up with a name for this new production.” Kat leans into the camera, cocking her eyebrow and widening her mouth. “How do I shut this- “
Luckily, Kat finds the power button before the camera records the rest of her sentence.
The Missing Orb of Xaria
Long ago in a faraway land, Xadguardians were the protectors of magic harbored in their world’s core, and this power attracted magical creatures and humans alike to settle on the lands of Xadgar. One day, after a millennium of the Xadguardians’ devotion to preserving these magical lands, a ginormous dark brown tree bountiful with colorful leaves and abstract patterns carved into the trunk that glowed like honey in the sun sprouted in the center of a small village. Each individual leaf was a different shade of vibrant colors of the rainbow and had glitter-like specs decorating the whole leaf that pulsed like a heartbeat. The Xadguardians believed this tree was a blessing from the magic within Xadgar and the tree became the center of the village. News of this blessing reached settlements far and wide, and not before long, the quaint village transformed into the capital city of Xadgar, now known as Prax. Shortly after Prax was established, a great famine havocked the city until one day when glistening orbs of light appeared on the tree. The Xadguardians picked the orbs and planted them the ground, and within minutes of the orbs being planted, various vegetables ready to be harvested sprouted – it was a miracle. Henceforth, the Xadguardians devoted their lives to preserving the tree at all costs and began referring to the tree as Xaria, meaning lucky tree.
Since then, Prax has more than doubled in size, and a large kitchen was built at the base of Xaria to serve as a main food hub for the city. All is well in Prax when a Giant named Caitif, a mage in training, is on his way to the kitchen to investigate a report of a missing orb. Once Caitif arrives at the kitchen, he notices his teacher, Demre, is already waiting for him.
“Caitif, over here! We need to get to work. The kitchen sure is busy today, so we need to find this orb pronto,” Demre crosses her arms. “Do the looking-glass spell we’ve been practicing.”
Caitif sighs and clenches his face. The looking-glass spell would be helpful so I could see where this orb is. I’m afraid to even try… I don’t want to fail.
“Relax, Caitif. You gotta stop being so frightened all the time. Your fear holds you back.”
“I never know how you just… know.”
“It doesn’t take magic to see the fear in you. But go on, keep trying.”
“I’m afraid that won’t be necessary, Demre. Your protégé is off the hook this time,” Redna, the kitchen’s head cook, echoes as she makes her way towards Demre and Caitif. “I’ve got something to confess… I gave an orb to a Frog named Illómen. He always comes by before the kitchen’s about to close and begs for an orb. I guess his crops died, and he knows that just one orb will provide a bountiful harvest. At first, I didn’t give him one because the orbs are so sacred and all, but about two weeks ago I gave him one because I… well, I caved.”
Demre scrunches her nose and snarls, “Where is Illómen now? I’d like to speak with him.”
“That’s the thing – he’s missing. I haven’t seen him in a couple days. Could you go to the old ruin and check on him?” Redna stares at her feet and twiddles her thumbs. “I don’t know what else to do.”
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll find your friend,” Caitif yelps, and he sprints out the door.
Demre’s eyes roll to the back of her head and she turns to follow Caitif. After walking for what felt like hours, Caitif and Demre arrive at the old ruin: a cluster of demolished houses lying on a bed of charcoal-like dirt on the edge of Prax. Caitif kneels and places his left hand on the ground.
“Someone’s close and these tracks are fresh.” Caitif tilts his head towards Demre.
“This is all you, kid. Remember what I taught you.”
Caitif nods then closes his eyes. “Light the way to whom I seek. Hopefully this won’t lead me to a creek,” Caitif chants, causing a clover green light to illuminate the ground under his fingertips and form a path that shines bright like a fire in the night. Caitif grins and sprints down the path until he arrives at a colorful mansion in the Northernwood, a forest a couple miles outside of Prax. In front of the house there is a sign that reads, “RUIN – Reimagining Unluckiness in the Northernwood.” Next to the sign sat a purple and red spotted Frog wearing golden silk with a display of vegetables spread out in front of him on a long table.
“Hello, are you Illómen?”
“Ah yes, hello there! Who might you be?”
“Just a traveler. What do you have here?”
“Vegetables – corn, green beans, you name it! I got a bunch of extra harvest from my garden, and I have some other stuff if you’re into magical things.”
“Magical things?” Caitif raises his brow and places his hands on his hips.
“Oh, ya know, elixirs, wands, and I even got my hands on one of those orbs.”
Caitif squints his eyes and inhales deeply. “How did you come by this stuff? It’s not easy getting magical items, much less an orb from Xaria. That kitchen there is always hopping.”
Illómen leans back in his chair and smugly replies, “Begging. I gotta make a living somehow and it’s nice to have the extra cash. Might’ve used a spell with this old wand to convince the kitchen lady to cough up an orb. So what? It’s not like anyone’s going to miss one orb.”
“For sure,” Caitif trails off and scans Illómen’s impressive three-story mansion and the exquisite landscaping surrounding his house. “You mind if I see this orb? I believe it could enhance my magical abilities if I forge it into a charm of sorts.”
Illómen nods and grabs the orb from under his chair, then once Illómen has the orb in his grip, Caitif leans in and places his left index finger between the Frog’s eyes.
Caitif chants, “Return this magic to the planet. Turn his home into a gannet. How you’ve lived to date will be your fate.” A blinding light overcomes Cantif and Illómen, and once the light dims; the mansion is gone, the gorgeous landscaping turned to dirt, Illómen’s silk clothing turned to rags, and the orb was nowhere to be seen.
“Where is my orb? My fortune…” Illómen pleads, kneeling at Caitif’s feet.
“I returned the orb to Xaria where it belongs. Heed this lesson, Illómen, or your fate is sealed.”
Caitif leaves Illómen in his despair and later reunites with Demre in Prax.
“Redna informed me the orb was returned in one piece. I’m proud of you, Caitif. You proved you can set aside your fear to see a mission through.”
As a result of Caitif’s heroism, he became a full-fledged mage and was recognized for his efforts to preserve Xaria’s orbs. As for Illómen, he never returns to Prax and stories of his mischievous deeds spread throughout Xadgar. He lived the rest of his life as a beggar… which was perfectly just.
Holiday Delights
“My family is excited to finally meet you. This is a good step for us,” Nezuko insists.
“Of course… but springing a family Christmas on me is intimidating, I mean, look at all these people,” Ben chuckles as his cheeks flush.
“Don’t you remember the run-down I gave you?”
“Yep, but if I recall, there’s still someone you haven’t told me about…”
“Oh, Kim? Trust me, you don’t want to meet her.”
“Kim – so she does have a name. You gotta fill me in now.”
Nezuko sighs and makes sure no one is in earshot before she leans in close to Ben. “Alright, fine. There’s only two things you need to know about my sister Kim: One, she is literally a female Greg Heffley–“
“Greg Heffley… from Diary of a Wimpy Kid? The children’s books?” Ben furrows his brow.
Nezuko nods. “This one time I was at Kim’s house a few years ago I noticed what appeared to be a sizeable grocery list on her cluttered refrigerator, completely normal, right? But I get a closer look and realize it’s just a list of games she wants to play, games I’ve never even heard of – like what’s Metroid? But don’t even get me started on the rest of her house, or her car for that matter. It’s only gotten worse since she got a cat last year.”
“That’s it? I was expecting… I don’t know, not that, but she seems cool,” Ben challenges.
“Ben, she brings her red tabby cat, Samus, everywhere she goes. That’s weird, Ben. And her breath always smells like black licorice. Who the hell eats black licorice? Crazy people, that’s who!” Nezuko declares.
Rolling his eyes, Ben places his hand on Nezuko’s shoulder. “Alright, Nez, if you say so,” Ben replies soothingly. “How about you introduce me to your grandparents?”
Kim suddenly barges through the door nearly tripping over her untied boot laces, her face knotted and bunching in on itself, taking her a few moments to realize everyone’s gawking at her performance, but this doesn’t faze her. Along with snowflakes ushering inside, a potent mixture of fresh, chilling winter breeze and acidic rotten eggs filled everyone’s nose, only growing stronger as the winter air faded into the warm air inside the living room. There was no color to her face except for pinkish ice kissed cheeks and brown crumbs coating the corners of her awkwardly pursed lips. Kim’s festive cherry red and forest green lumberjack plaid shirt is soaked from snow melting into the fabric and long, tawny cat hair scattered like loose grass decorates the front of her shirt and pitch-black jeans. The culprit, Samus herself, is effortlessly cradled in Kim’s left arm while Kim frantically attempts to make herself look presentable. Kim looks up from inadvertently clustering Samus’ hair across her shirt and scans the quaint living room with a dopey expression allowing her golden almond eyes to glaze over a sea of astonished reactions. Great, here we go again. Why does this always happen to me, Kim thinks to herself. Kim’s spine straightens and she boxes her shoulders, but if anything, that draws more attention to her twitching lips and fingers dancing across her upper right thigh as if she is pressing piano keys, playing harmony to Samus’ purr-fect low hum.
“H-hello everyone,” Kim splutters, awkwardly jerking her free hand in the air for a brief second. “Sorry I’m late… had an incident in the kitchen before I left.” Kim tilts her head forward, audibly sniffing herself, and quickly draws her head back curling her nose and widening her eyes. The awkward silence ensues. A flash of discomfort crosses Kim’s face as her jaw slowly tenses. Kim immediately breaks eye contact and glances around the room unable to focus on anything until she shakily kneels to the ground turning her back to us, placing Samus in her lap. Eventually the party resumes as if nothing interrupted the excitement, but Kim’s still sitting on the floor clenching the back of her neck with one hand and petting Samus with the other. The back of Kim’s shirt has a giant green sewn-on Christmas tree covering nearly every inch of fabric; thankfully, Kim chose to wear her overgrown dark chocolate hair up in Princess Leia fashioned buns to fully display the festivity of her shirt. Now that the party’s focal point are the jolly tunes rocking from the speakers, Kim’s rigidness mellows out as she decides to join the festivities. Kim rose to her feet, leaving Samus to roam the house, and meandered over to Nezuko and Ben who were sitting at a small white round table a few feet from the door, swaying her torso from side to side with every step so enthusiastically she looked like a waddling penguin. Pulling up a chair, Kim sits down directly in front of Nezuko and Ben.
“Hi, I’m Kim, and you must be my sister’s boyfriend. It’s nice to meet you!”
Ben smiles and waves his hand. “I’m Ben. Your sister has told me a lot about you. It’s nice to finally meet you. The Christmas tree on the back of your shirt looks good by the way.”
“Thanks, I sewed it on myself just for these parties. Ma always says my red and green shirts aren’t Christmas-y enough, but now that problem’s solved.”
Ben chuckles and covers his nose with his hand.
“Oh sorry – I ate some black licorice on the way here, and I forget not everyone loves black licorice as I do.”
Out of the corner of his eye, Ben sees enough of Nezuko’s sass filled expression facing his direction to know better than to look her in the eye. Kim fumbles with a pack of gum, nearly dropping the stick on the table before she could toss it in her mouth.
“So, Ben, do ya like video games?” Kim gushes and bangs the table as if she were playing the drums.
Nezuko sinks in her chair and buries her face in her hands, groaning, “This is going to be a long night.” And a long night it was.
Despondence
A person gets out of the elevator and approaches a door. A pink stethoscope dangling around their neck reflects a beam of sunlight across a vast waiting room directly into my right eye. Of all the places light can travel its destination is my pupil. The universe must love me today. Light sears into my ocular tissue radiating warm discomfort throughout my eye and involuntarily tensing the right half of my face, but the slight pressure from my calloused fingers massaging my eyelid gradually dissipates the pulsing sensation. Briefly, the air surrounding me rapidly whooshes before the echoing smack of a hand colliding with my forearm scatters across the waiting room and sends tingly stings crawling under my skin. Pulling my arm back, I slightly tilt my head to the left and furrow my eyebrows.
“Dad, how many times do I have to tell you to stop touching your face? Here, take some hand sanitizer,” Sara growled. “There are a lot of germs in waiting rooms and catching a cold is the last thing you need.”
Clear sanitizer plops in my hand and the pungent scent of alcohol with a hint of daisies dances in my nose the more I smear the sticky liquid over my fingers and palms.
“Thanks, punk.”
Sara shakes her head dismissively then returns to her book. Her short golden-brown hair sparkles in the sun, revealing thin ginger highlights woven delicately into her loose curls that end at the base of her neck, where a single diamond was floating on a silver chain: her mother’s necklace. My eyes glance down at my silver band resting on my left hand.
If only the COVID restrictions weren’t in place, then we could all be here, together, but it’s probably for the best Carla waits at home - I know how she worries.
“Dean!” A short nurse in light blue scrubs calls out from the edge of the waiting room. I turn to my daughter who’s already facing me. She grabs my left hand, gently squeezes it, and stares into my eyes intently. We rise and make our way to the nurse.
“Dean?”
“That’s me.”
“Hi Dean, it’s nice to meet you! Who is accompanying you today?”
“My daughter, Sara.”
“Hi Sara, it’s nice to meet you! Right this way, please. We’ll be in the room on the left side of the wall across from the elevator.”
The clamor of our footsteps is somewhat absorbed into the floor as we parade into the office. A blinding white LED light illuminates the room leaving no corner for shadows to lurk. The wall across from the door is all window, from the ceiling to the floor, but today is a full overcast and looks as if it’s 6am despite being quarter to noon. Directly in front of the window is a large, charcoal desk with a silver MacBook in a neon pink case placed on the left side in front of a silver rolling chair. Picture frames of various sizes are scattered about the right side of the desk with one pencil holder conveniently positioned near the front of the desk close to two black chairs that are a few feet in front of us.
“Feel free to have a seat and Doctor Shepard will be with you momentarily.”
An abrupt thud of the wooden door behind me concludes the nurse’s sentence while Sara and I make ourselves comfortable in the black chairs. My focus is immediately directed to the office walls in attempt to combat the deafening silence. The office walls are practically empty with only two degrees hanging on the wall adjacent to the door, one for completing a bachelor’s degree at some random university and the other for a medical degree that reads ‘Doctor of Oncology.’ Both side walls have the obligatory medical poster diagrams littered with technical mumbo jumbo, yet still leaving a generous amount of open wall space.
“Dad – you okay?”
“Yep.”
“C’mon, you can talk to me,” Sara sighed, “I’m here fo-“
A hollow rap-tap echoed through the office before the click of the knob swung the office door open and in came a doctor with a pink stethoscope.
“Hello, I’m Dr. Shepard, and you must be Dean?”
She’s the one who tried to blind me earlier? At least she didn’t keep us waiting. “Yep, and this is my daughter, Sara,” I reply, gesturing towards my daughter.
“It’s nice to meet you both,” Dr. Shepard smiled. She sits at her desk, opens her laptop, and takes a few seconds scanning her screen. “Okay – Dean Kryze, 75, otherwise healthy except for a few underlying conditions. You’re seeing me today to get the results of a biopsy you had a few days ago. Does this sound accurate?”
“Yep.”
Dr. Shepard shifts her laptop to the side so there’s nothing between her and us, and her eyes study us intently. “Your results came in this morning,” she affirmed. “It’s cancer. The biopsy we took wasn’t the origin of the cancer, but we don’t know where it originated. We’re going to need additional biopsies and – “
I knew it wasn’t good, but cancer? Dr. Shepard’s words turn to mush and slowly seep into the background, synchronizing with the monotonous low drone of the heater. I feel my torso slump forward and my forearms rest on my upper thigh.
When did I start looking at the floor? Did Dr. Shepard just say radiation? I should be paying attention. But I can’t.
The rhythmic clicking of my nails scraping each other is like a metronome in my mind organizing scarce thought manages to form. My scatterbrain is now chaotic harmony.
How will my family handle this? I imagine they will be fine. But where will this leave me?
I feel a warm hand rest on my left shoulder that lures me out of my trance, and in response, I turn my head to see my daughter already looking back at me.
“Dad, do you have any questions?”
“Nope.”
“I know this news is a lot to process, but I’ll see you back here in two days for your second biopsy,” Dr. Shepard added, “It was nice to meet both of you.”
This meeting was rushed; I can’t believe she only spent a few minutes with us. Sara and I make it to the elevator and select the parking garage. The elevator doors close, I tilt my head, and curl my wrist to uncover my watch hiding under my sleeve.
How is it already one o’clock? A chime pierces my ears as the doors slide open, welcoming in the rubbery gas scented air. Sara and I walk out of the elevator and approach our car. Not a word is spoken between us, but I can feel her eyes watching me get into the passenger seat. I observe Sara get in the car, wash her hands, and buckle her seatbelt.
‘Hey, punk?”
“Yea?”
“I love ya.”
Sara’s eyes well up, but she manages to conceal her sorrow with a smile. “I love you too, dad.”
Sara discretely wipes her eyes and starts the car. I shift my head to look out the window, and we sit in sullen silence as we drive off.
Life: An Interactive Narrative
This is an essay I wrote for my philosophy class where we had to use some of our course literature to examine how form is the message, then examine how the form also tells us something about our current environment - how it could be alerting us of change in our society, our dynamic. I chose to discuss video games and accentuate how the medium effectively sends us messages when we choose to pay attention.
November 26th, 2020
As technology advances, more ways to convey stories and their messages are created, resulting in the increased availability of messages to the general population. Historically, stories were spread by word of mouth before making the transition to art and written language; however, today we utilize a variety of mediums such as film and animation that have become some of the more popular mediums of disseminating messages over books. There is, however, another medium that often gets overlooked: video games. Games have evolved from playing cards with family and friends to a digital experience that often includes a narrative, or story campaign, meant to take the player to a new dimension of combining gameplay with a storytelling experience. Video games offer different benefits to heighten the experience that has the potential to convey important messages by generating sensations provided from the picture and the act of stepping in another character’s shoes via using a controller to perform the actions as said character, which increases immersion in the experience as well as the overall effectiveness of connecting with audiences.
Campaigns are structured differently depending on the narrative and themes the creator is trying to portray, most commonly set to play as a given character through their story while performing actions on behalf of said character, which also acts as a piece of the overall message in certain narrative-driven games – like The Last of Us Part II for example. Then there are story-driven games that are more of an interactive narrative, meaning the player’s choices throughout the game alter the gameplay, interactions, relationships with other characters, and provide alternate endings – such as Detroit: Become Human. Different styles of narrative-driven games serve as a message to the player that varies from game to game, and it also signifies the era in which our society is currently in.
Let’s take a game with a strict character-focused narrative, using the player experience from The Last of Us Part II, and examine how the game’s form enacts the message. While most games feed the audience the same stuff on repeat, resulting in the stories being unsatisfying, The Last of Us Part II takes a narrative risk by subverting expectations with a form of gameplay that subconsciously forces players to question their own morality as the game progresses. As what is generally described by Flusser in Our Diversion, humans crave meaningful sensations, and in an era where we have digital technology, the pixels from the images provide those sensations allowing us to have the experience without the meaning (Flusser, “Our Diversion,” p. 110). Given this, that’s where the initial form of video games comes in: although players can’t physically experience the events for themselves, the device allowing the player to engage with the game – a controller or keyboard – is what will give the player the meaning behind the experience from sensations generated through pixels, essentially providing an artificial experience in order to generate meaning to go alongside the artificially stimulated sensations. In games, you play as a certain character and, by using a controller, perform actions on their behalf that can be as simple as walking around the map or as complex as a stealth mission in enemy territory. Most narrative-driven games don’t have player freedom over the story direction, so you’re forced to follow the path the game prompts you to do in order to see the character’s story come full circle. In the case of The Last of Us Part II, the form in which the gameplay is presented is the message.
Players start off with playing as a fan-favorite character, Ellie, who’s going about her day when she stumbles across a group of strangers who kidnapped Joel, a father figure to her, and murders him in front of her. Subsequently, Ellie decides to go on a quest of revenge against the murderers of her mentor - a character we come to know as Abby and her friends. At this point, players have only played as Ellie and are right alongside her emotionally, fueled by a connection previously established in the game’s prequel, when halfway through the campaign the tables turn, and now you’re playing as Abby: the person who brutally killed Joel, and the character you’re visualizing as the enemy based off how the game was framed from Ellie’s perspective until now. This is where the form of a strict narrative comes in: you’re being forced to step in another character’s shoes – in this case someone you are skeptical of – to learn their perspectives and experiences. We’ve seen games where you swap between playable characters, so that concept is nothing new, but to use a character that has been ‘justifiably’ villainized with the intent to initially make the audience dislike them in this way is groundbreaking. Neil Druckmann, the creator of The Last of Us Part II, essentially created a new language to tell his story and deliver his message – subverting expectations by forcing players to play as, and grow to understand, someone they otherwise would not attempt to accept – which is important when creating new stories to keep things fresh for the audience (Deleuze, “Literature and Life,” p. 230). While playing as Abby, the character you’re led to direct all blame toward, you slowly realize why she came after Joel in the first place: Joel killed her father who happened to be the surgeon we see at the end of the first game. Now the audience realizes that Ellie is on a mission to kill the person who murdered her father figure just like Abby went on a mission to kill the person who murdered her father - revealing that both characters are in a similar situation and embarked on like quests of vengeance, yet the audience is sympathetic and supportive of one, Ellie, while holding contempt for the other, Abby. Whether the player likes it or not, the form of gameplay is deliberately forcing the player to realize their personal bias and perception largely dictates how one interacts with others and the world which, in turn, then forces them to confront their own morality.
While the form of The Last of Us Part II is brilliant in that regard, it also alerts us of a change in our environment which is that people are more judgmental of others and willing to be quick to persecute without understanding; this awakening that The Last of Us Part II is trying to generate is something that art in any form should do to yank us out of our own complacency (McLuhan, “Art as Survival,” p. 206). We live in a time where judgement and persecution are a daily occurrence, especially on the internet, and this is especially evident in the response to this game. When the uproar hit the internet, which was general upset about playing as someone who killed a fan-favorite character in addition to the death of said character, people flocked to Twitter to harass the game developers without understanding the reason behind the form or the message it conveyed. Ironic, isn’t it? There are other games that deliver relevant messages through a strict narrative, but The Last of Us Part II is a recent example of how the form of gameplay in a strict narrative format delivers a message that compliments its content well.
Strict narratives have their benefits; however, in recent years another form of video game narrative surfaced that revolutionized campaigns and the player experience: interactive narratives. Video games with interactive narratives have a flexible storyline that emphasizes player choices, and the choices the player makes affects the gameplay, relationships formed within the game, as well as the outcome. In early forms of these types of games, if the player deviated from the suggested storyline, circumstances in the game didn’t adapt well and the algorithm broke the flow, but now that technology has advanced, players can choose whichever path they want and the game seamlessly adapts to maintain the flow. Detroit: Become Human, a newer interactive narrative game, heavily emphasizes player choice throughout the experience from choosing how your character responds to others, and this is one of the few games where your actions in general can also affect the game as well as prompt various optional conversations that aren’t always available to choose. For instance, in a case of conversation, there are situations in which the player is placed in a tough situation that means life or death for another character in the game, and you’re responsible if a character lives or dies.
Since Detroit: Become Human is an interactive narrative, the game provides four conversational options to choose from that dictate how you respond, and all the options lead to different end results as well as varying conversations with the characters involved in a certain interaction. In most cases, there is one conversational flow that allows for the happy ending while the other ways the interaction could go result in varying degrees of the bad ending, with one being the worst possible outcome. In interactions like this, it really highlights how seamless the conversation plays out despite having multiple response combinations, emphasizing how interactive narratives flow: the player and the game’s algorithm are feeding off each other. The game is actively recording responses and adapting its response to create and maintain a chamber music-like flow similar to a conversation between two individuals. The algorithms awareness of, and adaptation to, the player’s responses and vise-versa creates a perpetual loop of feeding off each other to create new experiences within the game which is also creating a new style of conveying messages based off this synchronization (Flusser, “Chamber Music,” p. 162).
While this concept incorporated in video games is neat and makes for a fun gaming experience, it’s a reflection of where our society is at today with the current state of our technology and its algorithms. Video games in general record players responses in order to improve functionality; although, the recording and storing of player response data in an interactive narrative serves to create a smarter algorithm that can improve the quality of its outputs to maintain immersion in the game regardless of the path the player chooses. Similarly, our actions across social media and the internet are also being recorded in order to enhance the algorithms to provide relevant ads for marketing, serve as analytics to major companies to learn consumer habits as well as other vital information, resulting in providing a seamless digitized experience. Like in video games, we willingly engage in behavior that we’re aware is trackable, but we are unknowingly changing the outcome of the future of technology, corporations, and social media platforms with the more information we willingly provide.
Video games are a modern form of delivering messages but aren’t a replacement for real experiences. Pixels can only provide so many sensations before it leaves the audience craving substance, the meaning behind the sensations, which is what video games were created to do: emulate experience. Combining sensations felt from pixels with a controller to transform the player a grand puppet master over characters in a game places the audience on another level of immersion intended to satisfy having meaning and the experience through artificial methods. This also grants the player an illusion of having complete control over their experience in a game – the same is true in life. In a game, you can run around the map and delay or alter the story progression while functioning within the design of the game, its algorithm. We also do the same in life: run around our corner of the world, that is also a map, and we alter our personal story progression along the way in our interactions with others and spaces around us – virtual and tangible – similar to an interactive narrative. The difference between a video game’s interactive narrative versus our own is we can choose to not function alongside the apparatus that encases the livelihood of society. The form of video games and their narratives directs awareness to the reality of how intertwined our narratives are with worldly algorithms and artificial systems, so it’s time we think more strategically about our own narratives and embrace real experiences versus artificial ones.
Works Cited
Deleuze, Gilles “Literature and Life,” in Critical Inquiry 23 (1997): 225-230.
Flusser, Vilém “Chamber Music,” in Into the Universe of Technical Images, trans. Nancy Ann Roth (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011).
Flusser, Vilém “Our Diversion,” in Post-History (Minneapolis: Univocal Publishing, 2013).
McLuhan, Marshall “Art as Survival in the Electric Age,” in Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Me: Lectures and Interviews, ed. Stephanie McLuhan and David Staines (Cambridge, Massachusetts: The MIT Press, 2003), 206-224.
Wayfaring Strangers
This is an essay I completed for my philosophy class where we had to use some of our course literature to answer the question, "How should we live?"
October 3rd, 2020
Humanity’s lust for worldly progression has cast a shadow over our reality making it difficult to ascertain left from right. We live in a society that’s structured to emphasize advertising wants as needs in order to promote a perpetual cycle of greed with no regard for how these practices affect the environment and ourselves. As John Michell discussed in The Ideal World-View, technological advancements have rapidly aged the world we live in to the point where the damage done is visible and continuing to take different forms, species extinction and increased pollution for example, as the decline worsens (Michell, “The Ideal World-View,” p. 97-98.) However, there are also subtle effects directly attacking us as a result from our fast-paced surroundings: we are plagued with complacency. Over the years, we have become too comfortable in society’s structured equilibrium that we’ve essentially imbalanced ourselves therefore making us strangers to ourselves and our surroundings. Although there are some messages created with the intention of increasing awareness to these issues, it’s often difficult to receive them while we’re constantly encompassed by distractions that are generating more noise to filter through. If we continue to walk through life like an automation, we’d further rob ourselves of true freedom and continue to harm our environment which is why breaking the mold of living a pre-written life script and restoring inner balance is needed in order to live our best life.
Breaking the mold is easier said than done but is the essential first step to free yourself from the grip of complacency. Remaining in the cycle on autopilot won’t allow yourself to discover a line of flight that will promote change and adaption to said change which is why the betrayal of society’s structure of living a pre-written life is inevitable in the pursuit of independence. Gilles Deleuze and Claire Parnet explore the idea of creating a line of flight in their writing, On the Superiority of Anglo-American Literature, where they express how the traitor is the essential character in a novel, regarded as the hero, who betrays the restrictive cycles set in motion in order to forge a new path for themselves and inspire others to do the same (Deleuze and Parnet, “On the Superiority of Anglo-American Literature,” p. 41.) It’s easy to linger in a state of complacency and function in sync with the current mold that keeps things pumping; however, it’s important to remember that your destiny isn’t set in stone, it’s yours to own, so be the hero of your own story. Choosing to break the mold is the first step to owning your destiny and to truly live free.
Once the cycle is broken, it’s important to make sure it stays broken by adopting new practices that will aid in purging negative emotion and living more light-heartedly so it’s easier to recognize changes in yourself and your surroundings. There are many sources of noise in our life, most in the form of social media, that add unnecessary stressors by clouding our thoughts with negative energy that may present itself differently from person to person, anxiety and being scatterbrained for example. Over time, the continued exposure to unnecessary noise encourages the negative energy to manifest and encourages our thoughts to become increasingly disarrayed which further emphasizes the need for a method of release. According to Alan Watts, Zen is a practice that teaches to hone our peripheral vision to broaden our minds, and in turn, keeps life simple (Watts, “The Philosophy of the Tao,” p. 8-10.) Adopting and practicing Zen will help in the process of purging negative emotion and filtering through the noise by learning to use your mind as a mirror so you don’t hold onto anything that may cause expectations to form (Watts, “The Philosophy of the Tao,” p. 20.) Having expectations is an easy way to feel unsatisfied resulting in that disappointment preventing you from embracing the experience for what it is. Keeping an open mind to promote going with the flow ensures that unforeseen obstacles won’t dampen your outlook on the day ahead and that no negative emotion is impacting other unrelated events.
In order to achieve and maintain a tranquil mind, meditation is a good option because it allows you to collect your thoughts and restore your inner balance which reconnects you with yourself. This is especially important because our mindset reflects how we perceive the world around us, and if we want to see a clear picture, we must have inner stillness. With this stillness, hopefully in turn, we will realize that we are connected with our surroundings. “We cannot think of ourselves other than as part of our surroundings, nor can we observe our universe other than as a projection of ourselves” (Michell, “The Ideal World-View,” p. 98.) Everything we do impacts our surroundings, other people and the earth, and the sooner we realize this, we can adopt ways to reduce the negative effect we may have on our surroundings, such as starting to recycle. Furthermore, maintaining a tranquil mind is also key to increasing our perception, and with this increased realization, we can better receive and experience the transparent value in art. Susan Sontag explains transparence in her writing, Against Interpretation, by describing that “transparence means experiencing the luminousness of the thing in itself, of things being what they are” (Sontag, “Against Interpretation,” p.13) Zen practices of receiving but not holding onto things removes expectation so we are able to see the artwork for what it is and feel its effect on us. How we react is important because that is what will aid us in our efforts to make sure our awareness of our surroundings stays relevant to prevent us from becoming inharmonious.
Living a pre-written life script isn’t how anyone should live, and in order to live our best life by living free, we must break the mold of living a pre-written life and restore our inner balance. The default equilibrium we’re functioning in promotes divergence which shows why we can’t continue traveling through life as a stranger to our surroundings and ourselves. We can restore balance in ourselves through practicing Zen and meditation, which reconnects you with yourself, and restore balance to our surroundings by becoming more conscious of the earth because, in turn, it will care for us. Everything is connected, referring to us to our surroundings, and the sooner we realize this, the better off we’ll be.
Works Cited
Deleuze, Gilles, and Claire Parnet, “On the Superiority of Anglo-American Literature,” in Dialogues, trans. Hugh Tomlinson & Barbara Habberjam (New York: Columbia University Press, 1987).
Michell, John. “The Ideal World-View,” in Satish Kumar, ed., The Schumacher Lectures (New York: Harper Colophon Books, 1981), 95-120.
Sontag, Susan. “Against Interpretation,” in Against Interpretation and Other Essays (New York: Anchor, 1966), 3-14.
Watts, Alan. “The Philosophy of the Tao,” in The Way of Zen (New York: Vintage Books, 1957), 3-28.