._ , , . *|, * _ _ -+--+- _. _|* _ || | (_](_) | | (_] (_]|(/, * ._| , , ._ . . . . . _ . . _ _ -+--+- _. |,. . _.;_/*._ _ |*. , _ _| _ _ _| \_|(_)(_| (_](_) | | (_] | (_|(_.| \|[ )(_] || \/ (/, (_](_)(_)(_] ._| ._| ._| A N O V E L B Y M A R T I E " M U R D S " M O O D ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: Chapter 7 Fold -- just add five more words ::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::: (5/2/25 3:13 a.m.) "So, if you think you're finished/Go back to the beginning and find/That everybody needs a little help/From time to time, just look inside/Now easy livin', it sets you free/You'll rediscover simplicity/'Cause cynicism gives way to be/Raindrops in every color/So, if you feel low, sit back, enjoy the show/ Like a kaleidoscope/In technicolor tonight/Matt, go back to sleep/I think I've finally got it all figured out/Like a butterfly floating in amber/We've made this moment eternal." -The Beginning, Magdalena Bay (2021) FADE IN i guess lol wtf is this -- HIT SHIFT, DOOD: (2/23/25) Beth Gibbons -- Lives Outgrown - 5 Floating Points -- Cascade - 3 death's dynamic shroud & gallen tipton -- You Like Music - 3 Grande Mahogany -- As Grande As - 3 Joanna Wang -- Hotel la Rut - 3 Civerous -- Maze Envy - 2 (2/22/25) JPEGMAFIA -- I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU - 5 Iglooghost -- Tidal Memory Exo - 4 Julia Holter -- Something in the Room She Moves - 3 Future Islands -- People Who Aren't There Anymore - 1 (2/20/25) Cindy Lee -- Diamond Jubilee - 5 Chelsea Wolfe -- She Reaches Out To She... - 4 Joey Valence and Brae -- No Hands - 4 Brittany Howard -- What Now - 3 (2/19/25) Ka -- The Thief Next to Jesus - 5 Blood Incantation -- Absolute Elsewhere - 5 Denzel Curry -- King of the Mischievous South Vol. 2 - 4 The Chisel -- What a Fucking Nightmare - 4 Adrianne Lenker -- Bright Future - 3 Kim Gordon -- The Collective - 2 Beyonce -- Cowboy Carter - 1 Cheekface -- It's Sorted - 1 (2/18/25) Laura Marling -- Patterns in Repeat - 5 Krallice -- Inorganic Rites - 4 Mach-Hommy -- RICHAXXHAITIAN - 4 Lust$ickPuppy -- CAROUSEL FROM HELL - 4 Lupe Fiasco -- Samurai - 4 Logic -- Ultra 85 - 4 The Lemon Twigs -- A Dream Is All We Know - 4 The Last Dinner Party -- Prelude to Ecstasy - 3 (2/17/25) Magdalena Bay -- Imaginal Disk - 5 Chat Pile -- Cool World - 4 (2/16/25) Moor Mother -- The Great Bailout - 4 NxWorries -- Why Lawd? - 4 MGMT -- Loss of Life - 4 Vince Staples -- Dark Times - 4 Vampire Weekend -- Only God Was Above Us - 3 Quadeca -- Scrapyard - 3 Porter Robinson -- SMILE! :D - 2 Xiu Xiu -- 13" Frank Beltrame Italian Stiletto with Bison Horn Grips - 2 Yeat -- 2093 - 1 Mount Eerie -- Night Palace - 1 (1/6/25) Jack White -- No Name - 4 (12/31/24) Nails -- Every Bridge Burning - 4 (12/29/24) Geordie Greep -- The New Sound - 3 (3/14/24) Top 30 Games 1. The Beginner's Guide (2015) 2. Disco Elysium (2019) 3. Final Fantasy X (2001) 4. Metal Gear Solid 2 (2001) 5. Undertale (2015) 6. Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number (2015) 7. Life is Strange (2015) 8. Resident Evil (1996) 9. Psychonauts (2005) 10. The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask (2000) 11. Grim Fandango (1998) 12. The Stanley Parable (2013) 13. Red Dead Redemption (2010) 14. The Last of Us (2013) 15. Dark Souls (2011) 16. Super Metroid (1994) 17. Half-Life (1998) 18. Left 4 Dead (2008) 19. Super Mario World (1991) 20. The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind (2002) 21. Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory (2005) 22. Mass Effect 2 (2010) 23. Chrono Cross (1999) 24. Halo 3 (2007) 25. Tony Hawk's Underground (2003) 26. Banjo-Kazooie (1998) 27. Portal 2 (2011) 28. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time (2003) 29. Rock Band 2 (2008) 30. Papers, Please (2013) Honorable Mentions: Ms. Pac Man (1982); Dead Rising 2 (2010); Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus (2002) (3/7/23 4:07 a.m.) CUT TO BLACK. 8888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888888 (5/2/25, at like 3 a.m., i'm not perfect with the dates, sue me) EDITOR'S NOTE: The following is a transcript of a video edited by Martie "Murds" Mood. Title: Why Utopia Fails in Transistor -- strummerdood Description: Free Palestine -- No Title as of 13 February 2024 28,340 Dead (2024), an album by Godspeed You! Black Emperor Visibility: Public Restrictions: - Date: Feb 19, 2015 Views: 3,704 Comments: 15 Like (vs. dislike): 178 (99.4%) BOARD: Full spoilers for Transistor upcoming Hey, I'm strummerdood or Matt or whatever, I don't know. So, Supergiant's Transistor treads some similar territory to their first game, Bastion: at face value, it's an isometric action-RPG set in a dying utopia, just a bit more complicated. And underneath the surface, it shares similar cynicism for the human race, just a bit more complicated. Transistor takes place in Cloudbank, a digitized city that allows its citizens to vote on just about everything, from the weather to the infrastructure. In addition, nothing in the story seems to indicate any on-going wars or famine. From the outside, Cloudbank seems like a utopia. But still, the city's population appears dissatisfied. Early in the game. Red and her companion Breach find a voting station for that day's weather. BREACH: Mild and inoffensive. Popular vote leads to stagnation, which upsets both Red and the game's lead antagonists, the Camerata. Red, who's a pop singer, writes about not wanting to become "one." Her lyrics lead to small, contained riots at shows, hinting at frustrations with the current system. BOARD: "Stop grieving, start leaving, before we all become one. Run." -We All Become from Transistor Meanwhile, members of the Camerata, like Royce Bracket, have felt the scorn of creating something more dynamic and experimental. The majority no longer accept new ideas. The Camerata live by the credence, ROYCE: When everything changes, nothing changes. In the poem The Peach Blossom Spring, the writer describes utopia as a community which never changes. In Buddhism, suffering arises from desire. Cloudbank always changes, its citizens always wanting. It seems the conspirators seek something more permanent -- but with a direction. The group begins absorbing influential people into the Transistor, a pseudo-paint brush for the city. It controls the Process, a basic artificial intelligence which changes the city based on the people's votes. Whether at the behest of the Camerata or through simple instinct, the Process begins reverting the city back to a blank slate when the Transistor is lost. Not much can be done unless the Transistor is returned to its cradle. After all, the machines aren't empathetic, they're just following their hard-coded protocol. On the contrary, Cloudbank's citizens make irrational, selfish, and questionable choices throughout the story...You know, like losing the thing to begin with. The core problem of the Camerata's plan is that they make a choice for their race without even knowing what exactly they want. Humanity is stupid, once we get something we've wanted forever, we immediately want something else. BOARD: "At this fucking moment, I'm in a sold-out theatre in FUCKING LONDON, in the West End. This would be a dream of mine as a child, and you know what I'm going to do tonight!? CRY MYSELF TO SLEEP!!" -Jim Jefferies In the film Artificial Intelligence, man wants to be God and bestow the ability to love into robots. But how can they create a being without even understanding their own purpose of existence? All they managed to do was infect a species with human consciousness, a needless, undying desire for something, I don't know. BOARD: "A robot that can love ends up being no more of a solution to the emptiness felt by so many people...It is just another step on the treadmill, another invention destined to fail us." -Mark S. Meritt on Artificial Intelligence Royce Bracket wants to be that God, even if it's just dominion over the Process, something he intimately understands, unlike humanity...he's kind of a sociopath. But Red defeats him and gains Super User status -- essentially the ability to build Cloudbank as she sees fit. The Process looks up to her, and they even design themselves in the image of humanity. But, of course, once she realizes Breach's body is gone forever, she chooses to kill herself with the Transistor. Like Yeezy said, "No one man should have all that power." The significance of the act is translated to the mechanics, primarily through Red's status as a silent protagonist. Gaming conventions dictate Red is an empty vessel for you to immerse yourself into, choosing what she does and how she acts. However, Red simply lost her voice, and she makes choices that go against the wishes of Breach throughout the story. And based on people's reactions to the end, Red goes against the player's desire to stay alive and kills herself without their input. BREACH: Don't do this. It's no coincidence the name Red signifies both love and anger. Nearly all the choices revolve around these two emotions. Literally, the first image is a woman looking down at a man with a sword impaled in his chest. Take Sybil. She falls for Red and holds disdain for Breach, leading her to send the Camarata after Red, either to bring the singer into the Transistor or kill Breach. Regardless, Breach sacrifices himself for Red. Later on, the couple of Asher and Grant kill themselves together. Breach calls them cowards, but after Red takes over the city, she too does something supposedly cowardly by impaling herself with the Transistor. Like Bastion, the game allows for New Game+, this time called "Recursion." In programming, recursion means to solve many small problems to answer a larger one. I mean, that's like the five-year-old version. But no matter what, human desire cannot be solved. We're poisoned with consciousness, and to the Process -- simple machinery working in tandem to do a massive job -- humanity is the virus. BOARD: "Too late for me, no reason to recover. If I should choose to rise I'm still descending. Never ending. I fall. I fall." -Signals from Transistor The game seems to say we will never achieve utopia because humans are inherently imperfect. Where there is peace, there is war. Humanity is a walking contradiction. But maybe that's alright. In the book, The Giver, utopia is achieved by taking away human emotion and memories. The main character learns of pain and bliss and chooses to suffer as an individualistic human rather than waste away as a lifeless nothing in the so-called utopia. In other words, he doesn't want to become "one." BOARD: "I liked the feeling of love. I wish we still had that...I do understand that it wouldn't work very well...Still, I did like the light they made. And the warmth." -Jonas from The Giver, Lois Lowry So too does Red choose to die and enter the Transistor rather than stagnate in Cloudbank as a so-called God. As a player, the only way to properly win is accept our flaws, exit to the shell, and accept utopia only in death.