Digital Sqrl Saga.

[xyzzysqrl]

Heya.

If you're (the nebulous "you" that is my beloved audience and friend-group) a fan of the Shin Megami Tensei games, or the Persona series, or if any of that sounds familiar, you might enjoy reading this. It's a translation of two (out of three) of the Megami Tensei novels put out back in the eighties.

I'll be blunt: These are trash. If I had actual paperback copies of these, I would be embarrassed to be reading them in public. Features include a beautiful, feminine high school boy who summons demons on his PC (a demon apparently takes up ten 8-inch floppies!), sex with demons, lots of evil, bit characters introduced for the sole purpose of being slaughtered, and in the second book: President Reagan ordering that an egyptian god be summoned to an orbital satellite.

It's a lot of fun if you can handle weird gooey pulp horror and/or want to see the origins of this particular video game series.

Meanwhile, let's get started on answering those questions people asked me. Goji and Mostlyjoe asked, for example, about my past. Backstory time!



It's hard for me to tell where to start with this one, so I'm gonna ramble a bit. I've often said that I learned to read on text adventure games. This is probably a lie, now that I really strain to remember. I was reading a lot of things as far back as I can remember. But the thing that really forced me to comprehend what I was reading was computer games. You could easily find Tiny Marketable Child Me sitting in front of the family TRS-80 with an encyclopedia on one side, a dictionary on the other, and an issue of "The Rainbow" Color Computer Monthly magazine in front of me. August was always the Game issue, and there'd be little bits of program code published in other months that I'd painstakingly type in so I could have a new game.

Mind you, if the program was -wrong-? Oh well. That game doesn't work. I never tried to fix things or deviate from what was written. Connectedly, if you gave me a Lego set, I would ask what it was SUPPOSED to be, or build it looking at the box. It's a weird quirk of mine. I hate doing things "Wrong". Even if it's better that way.

Mind you, in situations where there are laxer rules, I'll go nuts.

Let's see. Uh. My father tells me he knows exactly when my faith in him died. The day he took me to kindergarten and left me there, I came home and just looked at him, and then went to my room and shut the door for the rest of the day and night. I have no memory of this myself, but I believe it. School was essentially a fresh hell where people would -tell- me I'd learn things, and then jerk anything I was interested in away in favor of a "lesson plan". Which often included things I considered useless.

So after a few weeks of school, I started reading through it. First I read the textbooks, then anything else in the classroom, then whatever I bought from home. This continued until I left high school to get a GED. I hated most of my teachers, because they had the illusion that I was to consider them authority figures.

This is, by and large, why my only skills are writing and verbal ones. I ignored math entirely, and feasted on the rest. At the same time, I trusted that if there was anything in the way of "life skills" to learn, I'd probably eventually learn them either by showing up or by reading about them. It's the same sort of problem that struck later, when I was learning to drive: The driving instructor took my parents aside and asked them "So how long has he been driving?"

The reply was "...he HASN'T. Your job is supposed to be to teach him to drive." The instructor just laughed.

I keep getting the feeling I'm really missing something important, y'know?

I had kind of a wacky childhood, mind you. Between doing things like drinking six cups of coffee and taking the riding lawnmower out on the local roads, or hanging out with a "youth group" run by student consoling who took us bungee jumping and swimming in the ocean, I had Adventures and whatnot.

I also played a LOT of video games and watched a lot of cartoons. And embarrassed myself a -lot- trying to find something in common with other kids. I was bullied and tortured a fair bit, and I have to admit I probably deserved some of it. Eventually I struck back by stabbing one of the bullies in the leg with a pencil. I was taken aside by teachers and furiously informed that he was the quarterback of the school football team and I'd probably just ruined their chances at the big game. I present this without comment.

I had a handful of friends, mind you! We did things like hang out all night at the mall after closing, running up the down escalators, or hitting golf balls into the bay. Basically we hung out together, clustered into a loose group of enormous idiots. It was fun, and I kinda want to get back in touch with them, except they've probably grown into actual adults.

I enjoyed being a kid for the most part. If this sounds melancholy it's only because of memories that are frankly embarrassing now.

I'm not sure what else to say. Any specific requests on my past?

Comments

[orrin.livejournal.com]

Man, that sounds really tempting to read. Too bad I had reading things on computer screens so much. Maybe I'll engage in an effort to print the whole thing out or something.

[xyzzysqrl]

I'd love it if he did the whole thing as a PDF or a straight-up .txt file or something...

...Maybe if I cut and paste it to a text file, you could print that?

[orrin.livejournal.com]

I can cut and paste it into a text file, if it comes to that, so don't worry about it.

What I apparently can't do is type. "I had reading things on computer screens?" WTF?

[bossgoji.livejournal.com]

Excellent post, sir! I don't have any further queries at this time, but I'm sure I'll think of some.

[foxish.livejournal.com]

Sounds a bit like my youth. I had a weird connection with adults for a long time, but then when they chose to instead consider that abnormal I lost a lot of respect for the elder generation and wound up kind of isolated. It didn't help that they yelled a lot.

I find I don't like learning anymore. I want to do all sorts of things but I have no focus and finding out new things is boring if it doesn't immediately fall into my lap. I could program or write novels or so on and so on but I just can't do it.

You're in a few ways inspiring, y'know. A few. No one's perfect but you're more perfecter than I.

[relee.livejournal.com]

Wild. ^.^

Too bad about the school stuff though.

[ff00ff.livejournal.com]

Wow. I read my way through Jr. High and High School myself, and at one point was in serious discussions with my parents and school guidance councilors about dropping out and getting a GED instead.

I ended up at a school for the exceptionally smart, and got a diploma, but I wonder how common it is for bright students to ignore school this way.

Of course I flatter myself by implying that I was bored with school because I was too smart for it. I was and am terrible at math, and I ignored my teachers and other students because I had a very hard time relating to them, and was frequently bullied, that is why I ignored classes and wanted to drop out, not because I was too bored by school.

Although, without paying attention I did have wicked good grades in English, history and science classes :)

[porsupah.livejournal.com]

It varies a lot, I'd imagine - I was fortunate enough to have teachers early on who'd either encourage me, or at least make an effort to tolerate me, even if I volunteered to take over from them for reading to the class, as their voice was getting croaky. =:) There were some bumps along the way, certainly, such as when I'd already learned cursive writing, and was then about to be taught a rather inelegant style instead, which I found quite objectionable. Mostly, though, they seemed fine with letting me get on with things at my own pace.

Whether how I've turned out serves as an accolade or warning is another matter. ^_^

Bullying's always a wretched problem. Thankfully, by the time that might have become a problem, I wound up in a very good school known primarily for its sports, but also with a fine academic record, so I was able to settle into the computer geek niche. (As in the kind of student who crawled into the physics labs through an open window in order to use the computers just sitting there, unused)

[scian-ashleyder.livejournal.com]

You're STILL so much like me it's scary.

[hat-of-nikitich.livejournal.com]

In a weird way, I feel very privileged to have known you during the Highschool Sqrl days! (Never mind that I thought you were 32 or something.)

[xyzzysqrl]

I remember those days. Those were awesome days.