XIV. TEMPERANCE
The negative space in the middle of the card once contained a strange abstract many-armed red creature.

(I don't remember why.)


It's much quieter now without it.

look it's kinda on the nose but consider especially the last couple episodes of the last season, when the old Korean dudes are talking about democracy.

oh I know you don't want to die but we voted, it's fair

todo / rewatch hack sign, consider my long lasting appreciation in it through the kill gameplay lens

the oubliettes linger with me most.

[oubliette] felt truly gameplay-free.

firstly, because it lacks an ideal state (the end door present in most levels), which is at least to me, like we discussed, strongly tied to the notion of game(play). [i guess to be precise, as there is a single state, whether it is ideal or not is irrelevant, because the notion of ideal is relative to the less-ideal. this is an implementation detail though, for the purposes of this train of thought]

secondly, because, as an essential counterpoint to the first, it gives you control over when to end the experience. which is perhaps thematically contrary to the idea of an oubliette, perhaps a constraint of form here (having to let you go back to the menu and experience more levels), but nevertheless unequivocally necessary if one takes away the ideal state. yet games can give you that freedom as well --it is not an anti-gameplay trait per se--, and i often wonder why they don't. one of my favorite examples is Sable, where you could decide to pick a tribe and hit credits after having met only one or few of the many options, without nearly experiencing even the majority of the content of the game. (that alone makes it one of my favorite games. i did end it early; i identified as a cartographer, so strongly that i felt no need to explore other tribes, and chose their mask as mine, ending the game only a few hours in, knowing there were dozens more i could experience, but with zero regrets -- i had been given a voluntary conclusion; closure; just like [oubliette], because it acknowledges the escape mechanism)

but what i keep thinking about, and my personal favorite level, is [another oubliette]. having a platform, 2 gaps and 2 doors marks such a stark contrast with the first. i did not even need the "try to enjoy yourself when you are trapped" prompt to start playing within it.

[another oubliette] is, to me, a playground. it also lacks an authored, game-ending ideal state, but it contains an affordance for player-defined ideal states (e.g. reaching the platform). this overlap is core to the dynamic that unfolds: it wouldn't have occured to me to define ideal states, or play undirectedly (in the caillois paidia sense) unless i was trapped. the lack of authored goals nor a (diegetic) way to leave is what enabled the birth of play in my mind (as in play with, or play within, not play it).

it reminded me of the experience of going to actual playgrounds as a child. structurally, they are similar -- a fenced perimeter (sometimes only unlockable by an adult), and undirected "platforms" within. and they had the same effect: forcibly confined within that space, kids create games/goals/stories/ideals using the toys at their disposal.

the crucial part to me is that, had i been allowed to leave the playground -- which i wasn't, as a young child, for a period of time -- then i might have left it early, never considering to imbue meaning or play in those modules, never elevating them (subliming them?). (ironically, if the comedy is not lost on you, i would definitely have left it early to go play... video games).

to be clear, the physical nature of the fencing around the playground is somewhat irrelevant. parents exiling their kids to "go play outside" for a set period of time has the exact same effect on them. and, in that case, parents often literally do this to 'forget' about their children, making this practice a literal oubliette.

more abstractly, these are the thoughts i keep coming back to:

- not all prisons are playgrounds (e.g. [oubliette])
- but maybe all playgrounds must be prisons (e.g. [another oubliette])
- because freedom to escape creates the goal to escape, and implodes the playground (e.g. [final oubliette])

surely there is a Foucauldian quip to be made here, but I haven't read him, so I'll abstain!

https://bsky.app/profile/murthynikhil.bsky.social/post/3lsqp7pg3qc24

QuoteThis Nic Reuben review illustrates the core of what I understand by
@droqen.bsky.social
's #killGameplay

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/promise-mascot-agency-review

something here is itching at me
todo: analyze the comments. what are they saying, what are they missing? the review is saying "here are the facts, here are the parts i didnt like" and the comments are saying "the facts are correct, but the parts that nic disliked are exactly the parts i liked"

i want to interrogate: is the review saying why nic doesn't like the parts? is there a deeper philosophy underpinning? are the comments failing to engage with the deeper philosophy ("kill gameplay", let's say), can we form a more meaningful conclusion about the philosophical or values-based statements being made???

i dont have time todo this right now but it seems interesting to do soon

i started out my tarot journey with some simple stuff
1-card readings
simple 3-card reading (past, present, future)

then a more complex 10-card reading borrowed from a friend, "T", this was a celtic cross with some other weird shit going on to the right in a staff shape that she got from a book, which i also used.

then i did some research on other sets of questions but didn't really use any except another 3-card simple one: "situation", "obstacle", "advice".

but i am enjoying coming up with my own recipes very very much.

today (1AM) i did a couple quick readings for myself about two relationships that i have in my life that ive been confused about. one that is more active and alive than i want it to be, a friendship. another that was active and has withered somewhat. i came up with a bunch of questions on the fly and privately noted... what i took them to mean. i think maybe if i do this enough i will have a better understanding of what questions work and why, as well as meanings of cards, but im not going to share exhaustive notes here.

the questions i asked (5) for the relationship that i am questioning continuing:
what brought us together? what keeps us together? what am i losing? what am i gaining? "future".

for the relationship that is older and has a bit more history i added two questions, and these were the (7) questions:
what brought us together, what kept us together, what broke us apart, what keeps us apart? what am i losing? what am i gaining? "future".

i learned how to do tarot by doing daily readings for myself...  i borrowed Secret Tarot by Lo Scarabeo from a friend of mine and drew one card every day, and made my tarot cards at the same time. i think maybe i didn't look at the cards i was drawing too closely  because i was busy making my own cards? anyway this was a great way to figure out the cards as a beginner, one at a time.

i was also doing big 10-card readings for various reasons, looking up cards as i needed to, but the daily readings really built up mental relationships to the individual cards! irecommend it!

I was reading 'Emergent Narrative and Reparative Play' again and this quote stuck out to me.

Quote from: p4Consider narrative discovery games, which position the player as investigator ferreting out a narrative truth, "carrying out in reverse the work of falsification" perpetrated by the game object and its designers, using an interactive toolkit supplied by those same perpetrators. . . . All the narrative energy is tied up in answering these questions; all the ergodic friction comes from grinding against the systems that makes answering them a challenge.

In particular, putting the player in the position of carrying out in reverse the work . . . perpetrated by the game object and its designers, using an interactive toolkit supplied by those same perpetrators is so much the gameplay at which I'd like to point the finger (and kill).

One interpetation of 'kill gameplay' that I get often is that it's a call for more narrative in games, but this paper's perspective on narrative mirrors my own in some cases, enough to make clear that it is definitely not a call, at least not an unexamined call, for more narrative in games. Narrative -- in games or otherwise -- can also contain some of that poison, whatever it is.

perhaps

it is gameplay to kill gameplay if we wield
gameplay's knife, killing
like a squadron in formation or guns or piano wire, agent,

it is gameplay to kill gameplay if we send
warriors with or without our strongest potions
measuring week long campaigns against gameplay
calculating its response and preparing our counter
                                                                        counter
                                                                             counter response,

solemn funerals for anyone
mean that dread god
anchors inside our children
gameplay,

it is gameplay to kill gameplay if we start
enough to pause, if we kill enough
to worry wondering have i killed enough
to wonder worrying have i made it?

it is gameplay to kill gameplay if we want it to mean anything
more than killing, less than gameplay, equal to our questioning,

is it gameplay to kill gameplay?