Cringe Side-Quest #1: SLAY by Brittney Morris - White-Kettle-Shufflepunk (and his All-Kiwi-Army of Kung-Fu Killers) reads a terrible book about a black seperatist MMORPG

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Previously on the Quest for Cringe, we covered the Nemesis series by April Daniels, a truly dire YA superhero series about an insufferable, violent MTF troon. That series' third instalment seems to be currently in limbo, so we moved onto House of Night, a supposed-vampire series that's mostly about how everyone except the most basic-bitch Midwestern teenage girl who ever lived are untermensch, with a thick patina of misandry and anti-Christianity for flavour. The first book, Marked, took a lot out of me, and future entries only get worse, so I figure we ought to break them up with some little side-quests. Build up our strength. Let's see, we've already covered troons, and whatever you want to call House of Night's brand of neo-pagan tinged neoliberalism. What next?

Well, there's definitely isn't enough media about racial grievances in America right now, so why not spotlight some good new-fashioned noircissism? That's right, we're doing a YA book about "Blackness" with a capital b.

Let me paint you a picture. Let's pretend you're walking down the street, when you see a flyer for a racism tournament. You think "I'm on Kiwi-Farms, I'm probably more racist than the median person." You train for weeks. You spar with Brahmin expats and Nigerian doctors. You learn foreign languages just so you can use their slurs correctly. You ask Korean people about Japanese people, and remind Europeans that Gypsies are a thing. You read The Bell Curve, do deep-dives into crime statistics, and even consume media made before 2017! You listen for hours at your grandfather's feet---and this ain't some sixty-something, nice-guy liberal granddad whose parents told them stories about the Civil Rights Movement. No, your granddad somehow fought for the Confederacy, despite being Australian (yeah, you're Australian in this hypothetical, FYI) and considers marriage between Swedes and Norwegians to be unforgivable miscegenation.

The day of the competition comes. You blitz through your opponents, making it all the way to finals. Then the other finalist announces herself as an anti-racist.

You're out in the first round.

That's basically SLAY, the YA debut of Brittney Murphy, someone I had to assure multiple people I showed this book to was black. At least on critic described as "Ready Player One meets Black Panther." Apparently this was meant to be positive. I know, I'm shocked too.


This is one of those books where I feel it's good to bring up the cover:

Yes, I do tend to pick books that can knock you unconscious or kill you for these threads, but that's not why I'm posting this. So, SLAY, aside from being cringe as fuck, refers to the VR game that's the focus of the book. It's full of lush vistas and outlandish character designs. People who actually think "solarpunk" is a thing might call it "afrofuturist." Should probably provide plenty of inspiration for cover-art, right? Apparently not, because all the artist (assuming this isn't just a photo put through a filter, which I'm guessing it is) or the publishers thought they needed to communicate to prospective readers about this book was that it had a black girl in it.

Start as you mean to continue.

To everyone who has ever had to minimize who you are to be palatable to those who aren’t like you

Aside from being a archetypal leftist meme of a dedication, I'm pretty sure that describes everyone who's ever lived at one point or another.

By day, I’m an honors student at Jefferson Academy. At night, I turn into the Nubian goddess most people know as Emerald.

"But enough about my stripper persona."

The second the bell rings, I’m out of my desk seat and bolting through the classroom door. There’s a battle tonight between PrestoBox, a master wizard from the Tundra, and Zama, a Voodoo queen from the same region. I absolutely can’t miss it. Once safely in the hallway, I pull out my phone and open WhatsApp to find a new text from the game mod, Cicada.


Cicada: You watching the tundra semifinals tonight?

Given how woke this book is, the fact the main character dared include a "Vodoo queen" as a class is quite suprising.

“Hey, Kix!” comes Harper’s voice, startling me from my thoughts. I look up to see her and my sister, Steph, walking toward me in their matching pink T-shirts with the Greek letters for Beta Beta Psi, a collective of the eight most outspoken, unapologetic, woke feminists at Jefferson Academy.

Woke feminists are like pacifist assassins: useless at the one thing you need them for.

Leave it to my parents to transfer us to a high school that prepares its students for college so thoroughly, they claim to have the most robust high school Greek life program in the country.

I refuse to believe there are actual high-school Greek societies. Consider this entry #1 in our "The main character should probably have been a university student" series.

“Hey, Harp. Hey, Steph,” I say, trying not to sound disappointed that I won’t get out of here for another ten minutes. I slip my phone into my back pocket and put on my best happy to see you face.
“Hey, Kiera,” Steph says with a grin, brushing her bangs out of the way of her lime-green glasses. Steph has a new pair of cheap plastic glasses for each day of the week, and her hair is always pressed straight and cut neatly at her shoulders. She insists keeping her hair straight saves time in the morning, but until she can prove it, I’ll keep my five-minute wake-up-and-shake-out-my-twist-out routine.

Because this is a book about black kids that came out in 2019, naturally it almost immediately launches into a weirdly defensive bit about hair. Seriously, there are literally dozens of picture-books out there about how great and special black people's hair is. There was a New York Times article about how horse-riding helmets are supposedly incompatible with black-riders, as though that's not the most bougie, niche complaint in the entire universe. It's not even that I think curly or nappy hair is ugly, and I know that black people have been ridiculed for their hair throughout history, but who in Current Year 2019 is getting turned down for a job or suspended from school for not straightening their hair? I refuse to believe the only demographic to rival drag-queens and troons for wig purchases is that confident in their natural hair.

Harper wants to ask Kiera some advice:

“It feels kind of weird to even be asking this question, but I’m asking because I genuinely don’t know the answer.”


I sigh and nod at her to just ask the question already. She always prefaces these with a disclaimer if it’s going to be one of those questions with two wrong answers. She didn’t used to be like this. When we were kids, Harper used to come over our house for Mario Kart, Legacy of Planets, and snacks. We used to talk about Usher and Fresh Prince, and boys in our class, and babysit her little brother, Wyatt. But now Steph is president of Beta Beta, and Harper is VP, and as royalty of the most feminist high school sorority in the country, Harper acts like she has to talk about polarizing stuff all the time.

I like the tacit acknowledgement that woke brainworms actively prevent black and white people from getting along. Also, Kiera and Harper are meant to be about seventeen, or maybe eighteen. Assuming this is set the year it came out, they would've been born in about 2001. How likely is it they'd have been super into Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as little kids?

Okay, fine,” says Harper when it becomes apparent Steph isn’t going anywhere. “I was thinking about changing my hair. Something fun and new, but, like, with bohemian vibes. There’s one style I really want to get, but I need to ask you about it first.”

"Because you are of the priestly class!"

Steph and I exchange looks again. When it comes to hair discussions, Steph and I have been on the Black girl hair journey together, and we have more in common than she and Harper ever will in the hair department. But I look back up at Harper, with her short blond pixie that hasn’t held a curl since middle school prom, when her mother had to use half a can of hair spray. She’s the only person I know who can rock a pixie like that, and since she stands about a foot taller than me with a long, willowy frame, it fits her. But I let her finish her question.

Yeah, this is one of those American works that capitalise "Black" supposedly because African-Americans are supposedly a distinct, unified culture on par with say, Japanese or French people. Yes, northern, southern, East Coast, West Coast, the descendants of slaves or the children of doctors from Nigeria, all the same thing. We don't capitalise "white" though, because white people don't have a culture. Except for this set of values posted for some time in the Smithsonian:

Who knew "planning from the future" and "objectivity" were exclusively white things! Also, black America, famously not very into Christianity. I assume all those gospel songs were about Papa Legba.


Yeah, like "vampyre" over in House of Night, this is not a convention we'll be adhering to.

“I need to, like, ask you, though, and don’t be afraid to say no,” she begins. “Am I allowed to get dreadlocks?”
Oh, what a question. Is she allowed to get dreadlocks? She’s asking permission to wear a hairstyle that’s been debated by people of many races for years and years as to whether it’s appropriating Black culture. How am I supposed to tell her yes without giving the disclaimer that I can’t speak for all Black people, and that she could ask any of us this question and get a different answer every time?

We're not even past page 2, and we've already had a white girl come crawling to her black friend for permission to style her hair, and Kiera's response is to lament the heavy burden placed on her shoulders, and not ask why the fuck Harper thinks she needed to ask in the first place. The problem with a lot of conservative critiques of woke want it to be about libertinism or hedonism or anything else where people have too much fun for their own good, rather than another tight-lipped, scolding church they're competing with.

“That’d make a great question for the Weekly!” chimes in Wyatt, stepping between Steph and me, leaning his arm on her shoulder and grinning at me. Nobody would guess by their looks that Harper and Wyatt are brother and sister. And by Wyatt’s freckles, bright blue eyes, messy dishwater-blond hair, lanky frame, and lack of height, nobody would guess he’s sixteen, and not twelve.

I normally wouldn't bat an eyelid at that description, but a lot has been written about how black kids are often perceived by white people to be older than they actually are. Given the role Wyatt will play in this book, I can't help but wonder if this is the author trying to turn that on its head, and call white boy underdeveloped twerps. I fucking hate how this book makes me think like a racial paranoiac as well.

“Seriously, Kiera, can I interview you about this?” Wyatt asks with that big, toothy grin. Even though he’s only a junior, he’s chief editor for the Jefferson Weekly, and he runs the political topics column like a criminal investigator, hyperanalyzing his interviewees’ answers, looking for cracks in their views so he can write them up with those clickbaity titles he always uses. I can see it now: “Black People Don’t Mind White People Wearing This ONE Hairstyle.”

How dare this aspiring student journalist be incisive and analytical! Didn't he see the Smithsonian chart? Those are white supremacy.

Between Wyatt as chief editor for the school newspaper even though he’s only a junior, and Steph, also a junior, as president of Beta Beta Psi, I feel like my college applications could have been so much more resplendent than they were when I submitted them. If only I could include my favorite after-school activity in my list of accomplishments.

"And if want to know why I can't, shut up."

“You can interview me!” offers Steph, and I can’t help but smile a bit. There’s no way Wyatt’s going to go for that. Steph is an expert debater who gives airtight answers to any question you ask her.

Because being good at high-school debate always means you know shit about the real world.

“We all know what you think about white people doing things, Steph,” says Wyatt. “You tell us all the goddamn time.”


Steph punches his arm so hard, he flinches and holds it close to him.


“Really?” he asks.


“I mean, if you’re going to assume I’m going to be an angry Black woman about this, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you.”

Wyatt is best boy.

“Steph,” I say, shaking my head. She’s talking too loud in this hallway, and people are looking at us now. The last thing the only two Black girls at Jefferson Academy need is to be seen as the loud ones.

Yeah, you wouldn't want to get called Karen--wait.

“I’ll have to think about that, Harper,” I say, hoping she’ll wait awhile and maybe forget about it.


“Okay,” she says, obviously disappointed, folding her arms over her chest. “Oh, we’re still on for math at eight tonight, right?”


Oh shit. It’s Thursday. I had to move Harper’s and my tutoring lesson to Thursday this week since Wyatt is playing in the Civil War baseball game next week and Steph and Harper need time tomorrow when they’re both available to write their opening speech as president and VP of Beta Beta.

I don't know what a Civil War baseball game is, but I assume if Wyatt wins, Kiera has to be his slave till the next one. Or Calamity will have to reveal her secret identity, which would be a shame.

But I do need the money. Cicada and I want to add more RAM to our servers because we’re about to launch more game cards soon. That’s sixty bucks down the drain if I cancel this week.

This explanation is going to seem very insufficient shortly.

“Uh,” I begin. When I say I absolutely can’t miss the Tundra Semifinals today, I mean it. I need to be there. The game gets bugs sometimes. Weird stuff starts happening when people try to hack in coins or trade new weapons. Lately, characters have been glitching out when they use a new crossbow that was released last week—falling through the map or losing upgrades—and when that happens, everyone blows up my DMs. Why?


Because I’m the game developer.


Nobody knows. Not even my family. Not even my boyfriend, Malcolm.

Yeah, Kiera basically runs a Triple A scale MMORPG with the help of one other chick, while being an overachieving high-school senior. I bet the Hannah Montana theme is already playing in your heads. This is of course fucking insane, but I find it almost charmingly retro. It's the kind of absurd power-fantasy you saw back when House of Night was still sort of a big deal. Like if I wrote a YA book about a teenage girl who's secretly President of the United States. Yes, I remember the comic, Prez.

“Pretty sure my queen is busy tonight,” comes a familiar voice from behind me. Two strong arms encircle my waist and kisses are being planted gently up the back of my neck, and I can smell Malcolm’s Ralph Lauren cologne behind me.


“Hey,” I say happily, looking up to see the progress he’s making with his goatee, smiling when I see he had his dreads freshly twisted this weekend, his Killmonger hairdo. I cuddle up under his arm. Normally, I would call him Boo, but I feel weird using that word in front of everyone here.

Consider the Killmonger hairdo foreshadowing. No, Malcolm isn't going to launch a genocidal crusade against all non-blacks, that'd at least be exciting. Although, it's possible Kiera might be part Halloween decoration, so there's that.

“Aaaand, that’s my cue to go!” announces Steph, turning on her heel and heading swiftly for the front door.


I have to physically concentrate on not rolling my eyes. Steph and Malcolm hate each other for the pettiest reasons. Malcolm thinks Black women don’t need sororities because they’re already sisters, and the word “sorority” is a fancy word for clique.

He is correct.

Steph thinks men have no business telling women what to do. That leaves me in the chasm in the middle, agreeing with both of them.

They're both right, but Malcolm more so--a high school sorority is in fact stupid.

“Right,” says Wyatt, glancing over his shoulder, probably to make sure Steph is far enough away not to hear him. “Soooo, just let me know about the interview, okay?”
I look up at Malcolm, whose thick eyebrows have sunken slightly.
“What kinda interview?” he asks.
“Wyatt wants to interview me for the Jefferson Weekly,” I say quickly, hoping Wyatt catches my hints. “It’s about Black hair. I think Wyatt’s trying to give diverse opinions some visibility in the paper.”
Malcolm motions to Wyatt with his chin and says, “ ’Bout time we had more diverse opinions in the Weekly. Okay, Wyatt, I see you.”

Which means, in Malcolm-speak, “well done.”

You can tell Malcolm isn't going to have a bright future in this book, because he welcomes the idea of debate in the press.

Malcolm teases Kiera for being... overly-diplomatic I guess once the other two are gone:

He leans in and kisses my forehead before pressing his forehead against mine.


“I want you to be yourself around me, and around them. I want my Black goddess all the time, but you out here sounding like you work in a call center.”

I've never been a black teenage girl (and even by Current Year standards, I could only be two of those things if I wanted to be) but if my boyfriend made a habit of calling me a "Black goddess" I'd assume he had a White Goddess on the side, and then team-up with Robert Graves for revenge.

I wish I could invite Malcolm into my world after school, into my game, where every word I speak reflects the Black goddess he sees in me, the one he got to see at Belmont, the one who rocked braids and almost made the Belmont High drill team. The walls may have been defaced with vandalism, and the lockers may have been falling apart, but at least we got to be ourselves.

"Our old school might've been a dangerous shithole, but at least I got to be more of a stereotype."

I'm not making the dangerous part up, by the way:

I smile up at him now. He has a scar in the middle of his bottom lip from the fight that got him expelled from Belmont—the fight that might have gotten me hurt if he hadn’t intervened.

This is literally a kid whining about how she has to go to a clean, safe school instead of the place she nearly got assaulted, because it was more "street."

I step up on my tiptoes and kiss that scar. Malcolm and I left Belmont together after freshman year, and Steph joined us. I left so many of our Black friends there, and I appreciate Malcolm doing his best to make sure I don’t leave my Blackness there with them.

"Blackness" meaning getting into fights and urban decay?

f he knew about SLAY, if he’d just give the game a chance, he might realize just how proud I am of us. But I can see the whole conversation now. He’d ask me why I’ve poured so much effort into a video game when I could be focusing on college prep and getting a good job, so I don’t join what he is constantly reminding me of: the mass of Black people who waste their lives on video games, junk food, drugs, unemployment, baby daddy drama, and child support. According to him, video games are distractions promoted by white society to slowly erode the focus and ambition of Black men. He wouldn’t understand.

Which is why white people don't play them. Or maybe Malcolm thinks Def Jam: Fight for NY is the only video game. Malcolm is clearly a huge Hotep, but he seems to be more interested in the material conditions of black people in America than culture war bullshit, so naturally, the book doesn't like him much.

I bite my lip and smile. Malcolm is fine as hell, and he knows I know it. We’re lucky—his parents don’t care what he does or where he goes, and my parents don’t mind giving us privacy at the house, since they’d rather we be there than at “some drunken party,” as Mom puts it.
Not sure what kinds of drunken parties she thinks are going down here at Jefferson. If people are throwing them, Malcolm and I are never invited.

Is the implication that Malcolm's parents are neglectful? Because if so, him going to this well-to-do charter school seems odd.

“I have homework,” I say. It’s not a complete lie. I do have homework. There’s a math test next week on polynomials that’s going to kick my ass if I don’t get it together and start studying.


“Can I help?”


He knows damn well if he came over, we wouldn’t be studying anything but each other.


“It’s American history,” I lie. His least favorite subject. It’s the only way to keep him away from the house while I immerse myself in the game. As far as Malcolm is concerned, American history is white history, and therefore antiBlack.

And I'm sure Kiera's opinions are that much different.

“You actually study for that shit?”


“I study so my final transcript doesn’t disappoint Spelman. Even if they admit me, if my final grades are too low and they change their mind, Atlanta won’t be a thing for us.”


That’s it, Kiera, I think, guilt-trip him.


“Fine, whatever.” He shrugs. “I’ve got some decolonizing to do anyway. S’called The 48 Laws of Power. Robert Greene. You heard of it?”


By “decolonizing,” he means reading. Knowing Malcolm, the book is written by a Black man about Black men getting their education, starting their own businesses, becoming the heads of households, and raising gorgeous little Black children with their gorgeous Black queens. Malcolm’s happily ever after. He’ll stay up all night reading books like that. I can’t complain about it, though—there’s something sexy about a strong, stoic boy who reads a lot. But he only reads books by Black men, Black women who edify Black men, and white men who reinforce his non-race-related philosophies, leaving me to keep my Cline and Le Guin to myself.

Le Guin deserves more than being used for cheap good-girl points in a shit YA book. Also, what kind of Hotep reads white authors of any sort?

I laugh at the irony of all those conversation-ending texts I get saying he’s going to go “decolonize,” leaving me to play SLAY uninterrupted.

How is that ironic?

I roll my eyes, but his game is working. My whole body is screaming to let him come over tonight. The duel starts in fifteen minutes, which means it might be over by the time he reaches my house. That should give us a couple of hours together before Mom gets home. Just because my parents are lax about us having sex in the house doesn’t mean we want them hearing us.

I'm surprised Malcolm isn't saving his vital fluids in case Yakub steals them to make more white babies.

And he winks and turns away, shrinking farther and farther down the hall among the rest of the students clustered in groups to gossip before whatever after-school clubs they might have. I sigh, wishing so badly that I could invite him into the game with me. His attitude and curiosity would make him an expert dueler. I don’t know if I’ll ever convince him that SLAY is different. To him, video games may be a distraction from becoming great, but I meant for it to do the exact opposite: to showcase how awesome we are as Black people, how multifaceted, resilient, and colorful we are. And I’ve tried hypothetical questions with him, like What if someone made a game that was just for Black people? but he doesn’t even entertain the idea. “They make things ‘just for us’ all the time—we’ve got Black movies and Black History Month. They give us our own shit to distract us from the fact that we don’t have control over their shit. Separate is not equal. That doesn’t even come close to leveling the field.”

I'm sure Malcolm is meant to be complaining that redheads are still sometimes seen in movies and films, but... based?

My house is just down the street from the school, so I walk home most days. It gets annoying sometimes, living so close. Game days make traffic on our street a nightmare.


But I can’t complain about the neighborhood. Bellevue, Washington, is one of the cleanest cities I’ve ever seen, in real life or on TV. Perfectly manicured trees line every public sidewalk, like they do at Disneyland, and I haven’t seen a pothole since we moved here from SoDo—that’s “south downtown”—three years ago, when Dad got promoted. Lucky for me, it happened shortly after Malcolm got expelled, and I got to follow him out here to Jefferson, which I love and hate. I love that I can charge these kids sixty dollars a session to tutor them in math. It’s a nice addition to my résumé, and it gives me extra cash to spend on RAM, server maintenance, and in-game artwork. But I hate, and I mean hate, being “the voice of Blackness” here.

Which is why you seem to expect people to get planning permission for their hair.

At Belmont, where 50 percent of the students are Black, and 70 percent are people of color, Malcolm and I got to be normal. Nobody was asking to touch my twist-out, nobody was asking him about his locs, and nobody was asking us for permission to appropriate Black culture as if we’re the authority for our entire race.

Okay, do people actually ask to touch black people's hair, let alone try to touch it without permission? Because trust me, I have never seen anyone past the age of three be interested in touching someone's hair, no matter what race they are.

I reach our little gray house at the end of the cul-de-sac that caps Newberg Lane. It’s smaller than most of the houses on this street, but it still doesn’t feel like home. Not like our home in SoDo anyway. This new house has two obnoxious white pillars on either side of the front door, and a wreath, and a peephole.


I notice a new decoration on the porch—a stuffed rabbit doll made of pink tube socks, sticks, and various brightly colored plastic eggs. That wasn’t here when I left for school this morning. Mom is clearly home early, and in a decorating mood, which means she’s going to ask me for help. Good thing I didn’t invite Malcolm over.

For the Easter Bunny was created to keep down the black man.

I carefully untie my shoes and carry them with me into the kitchen, where I keep my shoe toothbrush in the pen drawer, so nobody will confuse it for a mouth toothbrush. I don’t know why I’m so particular about keeping my white shoes white. They’re just Keds. Not like they’re a pair of two-hundred-dollar Yeezys a lot of other Jefferson kids have. But it still irks me when they get dirty.

I am genuinely curious what is it with black people (or maybe Americans in general) with sneakers.

I find Mom and Steph sitting at the dining table, which always has eight place mats and a seasonal centerpiece, just in case Mom ever wants to throw a spontaneous dinner party. Although with her new schedule at the dental clinic, I doubt she’ll ever really have time.

Do make a note of Kiera's mother being a dentist.

“Hey!” exclaims Steph. She looks up at me through new red glasses—apparently, she’s already bored of the green ones she was wearing earlier. These ones are as big around as baseballs, with the lenses punched out. Mine are boring black frames, with prescription lenses. Simple.

Like all Puritans, Kiera disdains frivolity.

“You expecting someone? Maybe a certain someone? A certain Hotep whose name I won’t mention?”


She calls Malcolm a Hotep, which, in her mind, is a brotha who claims he’s for Black power, when he’s really for Black male power, homophobia, misogyny, and other regressive ideologies. I say as long as Malcolm is encouraging our people to do better, and me to do better, I can’t complain, even if he says a few off-color things every so often. He may not “get” feminism all the way yet, but he’s a work in progress.

Here we see the central tension of the book. Kiera and Malcolm both basically advocate for a kind of neo-segregationism, but Malcom's brand of black separatism alienates other members of the woke coalition with its social conservatism, therefore, he is the enemy.

I deflect her question. “Jealousy ain’t cute, Steph.”


“Don’t say ain’t in my house,” says Mom with raised brows.


I made “Ain’t” a card in the game, since Ebonics is part of what differentiates the American Black experience from American “other” experiences. It’s ours. And I’ll use the word “ain’t” however I please as soon as I log in.

Aren't white southerners also quite fond of the expression? A lot of this book comes across as deep desperation to avoid admitting that black people are in fact, American.

But my mom’s raised eyebrows ain’t playing. “Boo-Boo the Fool” is another card in the game. It’s a Battle card, since “Do I look like Boo-Boo the Fool?” is a rhetorical question that essentially translates to “I wasn’t born yesterday.” It’s a challenge to say something else and see what happens, and so are raised eyebrows, which is why the card features an artistic rendition of my mom’s. But as long as my mom still feels the need to “correct” Ebonics, like when we say words like “ain’t,” she’ll never see the card, or the game. She’d just be disappointed.

Real-talk here, I have nothing against ebonics or whatever. I've heard black people speak like that and come across perfectly erudite. But notice that Kiera's mother can't just be in the wrong for being overly controlling about something harmless. It has to be part of the Struggle.

It’s not that I don’t get why she does it. She doesn’t want us to walk into a job interview one day with “Ay, bruh, I ain’t got much ’sperience, but I’ma do what I gotta do to get the job done, you feel me, cuz?” but Steph and I know how to alternate. It’s like speaking two different languages. One when I’m home, FaceTiming Malcolm, and one when I’m at Jefferson, blending in. I can do both flawlessly. But some nagging fear in the back of my mom’s mind thinks that if she doesn’t snuff out every “finna” and “talmbout” and “I’on,” Steph and I will be forever unemployable, and every dime she’s spent at Jefferson will go down the drain.

See, there is a point here, but pretending it's unique to the black experience is disingenuous. Yes, people who talk like that will be passed over for jobs and opportunities, but so will someone who talks like an Appalachian trapper, because both those dialects are associated with poverty. This is where Twitter calls me a dirtbag class-reductionist for daring to suggest poor white and poor black people might have something in common.

“Yes, Mom,” I say, pulling my phone out and stealing a glance at the screen. A new text from Malcolm.
Malcolm: See you tomorrow. Until then, listen to this and miss me.
He attached a new song by the Weeknd—that one that was nice and slow that I suggested we make love to.

There's something oddly disarming about how offhandedly this book mentions Kiera being sexually active. Not because it's gross or inappropriate--teenagers do in fact have sex sometimes--but trust me, modern YA is terrified of sex, at least when it's heterosexual. Steph shows off her new novelty glasses. Their mother is horrified they've been repaired with scotch-tape.

“But Scotch tape, Steph? Really,” says Mom. “You could find a nice new pair on Amazon that doesn’t look so . . .”
Steph leans back against her chair and folds her arms over her chest, challenging Mom to finish the sentence.
“Tacky,” says Mom. I know she’s avoiding the word “ghetto,” after Steph’s lecture to the family last week about how “ghetto” is just a derogatory code word for innovative.

...I imagine the people who actually have to live in the ghetto beg to differ.

“I just don’t want those kids at Jefferson ostracizing you and your sister.”


Too late for that.


“I get it, Mom,” replies Steph. “But I genuinely don’t care. If I wear red tape-covered glasses, quote lyrics from The Chronic regularly, and speak in AAVE, and that’s enough to get me ostracized, it’s going to happen no matter what I do.”

You ever notice wokes still let rap be vulgar and hateful. These two are the wokest black people ever, and apparently they have no problem with Dre telling Eazy E to eat a dick every other line. Maybe Steph got a weird rep for rapping "Bitches Ain't Shit" in the middle of class.

Okay, I have to ask. “What’s AAVE?”


“Oh, please don’t get her started,” sighs Mom, looking up at me like I just asked Steph to recite the Gettysburg Address for us.

God, imagine being these kids' mother. Stop lecturing her how to be black, Steph, she's been at it way longer than you have!

“No, Mom, this is important. Kiera needs to hear this. It stands for African American Vernacular English, and—”


“Actually,” I say, glancing back at my phone. It’s already 3:08. I have seven minutes to log in. “Sorry I asked. I need to get to studying. Biology exam tomorrow.”


I turn to leave through the kitchen just as Steph launches into, “Okay, we’ll talk later, though, right? This is important!” at a thousand decibels, after which comes a swift shhhhhhh from Mom to remind her not to yell in the house.

Is it possible for "being black" to be someone's autistic special interest?

When I get to my room, I lock the door and run to my computer chair. When I log in, there are 641 new DMs in my SLAY inbox. That’s the name of the game—SLAY. It’s not an acronym, although that’s always the first question of anyone who joins, and people have been offering suggestions for acronyms ever since its launch. It’s a double entendre, meaning both “to greatly impress” and “to annihilate.”

So, this book is ostensibly meant for black kids to read and relate to. How interesting are they going to find having their own slang explained to them? Assuming they can see through the tears of laughter that this book is called Slay.

I thought the name was more than appropriate for a turn-based VR card game where players go head-to-head in card duels using elements of Black culture.

Deeply shit sentence structure. Like, the idea is clear, it's called Slay because black people, hur hur. But what does that have to do with the card stuff? Most of the sentence is superfluous to the point it's trying to make.

Steph would love it if she ever knew about it. Or if she knew I was the developer. But for all the confidence I have in my sister, one thing she absolutely can’t do is keep a secret. And on top of that, her constant jabs at Malcolm make me wonder if she’d get the game. There are players from all over the world, all walks of life, many who grew up poor like Malcolm, regularly “decolonize” like Malcolm, and surround themselves with specific kinds of Black influences, like Malcolm. I don’t know if I can share SLAY with her, because I don’t know if she’ll accept it— all of it. Not without overthinking it. So I won’t. Probably not ever.

Okay, maybe I'm missing something about American school systems, but how is Malcolm able to attend to Jefferson High if he's poor. Is it a private school, or a public one and his family edged into the catchment area?

Kiera seems to be keeping the biggest thing in her life a secret from everyone she loves because they might have some criticisms of it. How very Gen Z.

I roll my eyes at the willful ignorance and glance at the clock. Five minutes till duel. I’ll read the rest of the messages later. I unlock the bottom drawer of my desk and pull out my headphones, and the gray VR socks, gloves, and goggles my family doesn’t know I bought.

VR gear is relatively expensive, right? Seems like having all this be required would exclude a lot of black players. Oh, there's me bringing class into it again.

My heart pounds as I slip them on. I can’t wait until I go off to Spelman so I can play with a noise-canceling headset. For now, I have to listen for my mom yelling through the door that it’s dinnertime, so I can say five more minutes and deflect suspicion.

At least be keeping a respectable secret from your parents, like vampirism, or being a masked vigilante.

I get up and stand in the middle of my room so I don’t knock anything over. All I keep in my room are my bunk bed with the sofa on the bottom, my bookcase, my dresser, my pouf, my desk in the corner by the door. When it comes to VR, the less furniture around me, the safer. Come on, come on, I urge as the map fills the screen. It’s nighttime in this region—the Tundra—so the navy skybox is up, almost black, peppered with shimmering stars. I look up and around at them all, and suddenly I miss all those summer nights Malcolm and I used to lie in my backyard in SoDo and watch what little of the night sky the city smog would leave us. Nights when we got to shut out the rest of the world and just be ourselves, swapping music, talking about which Black genius’s opinions he was reading that day. I captured several of his favorites in SLAY—Maya Angelou, James Baldwin, and Langston Hughes.

Maya Angelou? I thought Malcolm only read guy authors, Keira?!

left my character, Emerald, here in the Tundra so it would be easier to get to the duel. The snowy mountains contrast nicely against the sky, spiking upward in a basin all around me. I raise my hand to slide the virtual keyboard from the right side of the screen, type Fairbanks Arena using the holographic keys, point my left hand to the north, and pull my trigger finger, allowing me to teleport at light speed. New players might think I named the arena after Fairbanks, Alaska, but the information panel would tell them I actually named it after Mabel Fairbanks, one of the first Black professional figure skaters.

Black people in the tundra sounds like the setup for an off-colour joke. Or maybe just Cool Runnings. There better be some Cool Runnings references here. Why else would you put a snow level in Black People Land?

Mountains zoom past me. I smile, impressed at how good they look up close. I was having a fantastic day when I created the Tundra. The textures are flawless—smooth and realistic. The snow looks fluffy up close. Every mountain looks hand-painted, thanks to donated art from a few indie artists who SLAY.

Piss off! "Oh, some artists who liked my game just provided me assets on par with a major studio." Real-talk here, I'm actually working with an artist to illustrate my first book, and if I asked her to "donate" some art, she'd cut my nuts off! Which ironically would probably make it easier for me to land a lit-agent, but still!

I built the arena itself entirely of diamonds, because I could, and because a diamond arena in an icy region is hella dope. It’s one of the biggest, too. It can hold three million people, since I hope one day the game gets that big.
For now, chat reads over a hundred thousand logged-in people out of the five hundred thousand people with SLAY accounts, which is still a lot for a single duel, even if it’s the semifinal round of a tournament, but I guess it’s prime time for people my age to be online, at least here on the West Coast.

Remember, this game is the afterschool and weekend project one one high-schooler. And no, as far as I can tell, this doesn't take place in the near-future where AI can do most of the work.

Also, this game has five-hundred thousand players. How are we supposed to believe no white people have heard of it? Hell, how do Keira and Cicada even check all these people are black? Do you have to send your 23&Me results? Photo-ID? Do they use blockchain?

...Blackchain?

I’m close enough to see the people forming a line into the arena now. I slow my pace and I’m flying smoothly over all the attendees. Most players choose to be either royalty or characters with special powers or weapons.

As opposed to the many gamers who choose to make their characters chronically-ill dirt-farmers?

A woman in bone armor notices me and takes a fighting stance. Her unnaturally large boobs and red headband around her enormous Afro make her look like a Mortal Kombat character.


Text appears above her head. “I hope you got my message, Emerald. We meet at dawn.”


Everyone says, “We meet at dawn.” It’s how we say, “I challenge you to a duel at a later time.” In fact, it’s become an identifier in the real world. About a year ago, kids in the grocery store started coming up to me and asking, “Did you thaw the meat?” or “Did you get the meat?” or “Do you eat meat?” and after some perusing in chat, I realized it’s a coded question. They ask pretty much any question involving meat, to which I’m supposed to reply, “We meet at dawn” if I want them to know I SLAY.

Yes, readers at home, this is a book about a secret Yu-Gi-Oh Illuminati for black people, which granted sounds like an amazing Key and Peele sketch.

When Reddit first launched, it was so secretive that Redditors in real life used to ask the highly conspicuous question “When does the narwhal bacon?” but I like our version better. It’s more covert. “Did you thaw the meat?” is a totally normal question to ask. “When does the narwhal bacon?” will make people ask, “WTF are you Internet kids up to?” which is exactly what I don’t want to happen. I know there are SLAYers who are just like me—who live one way during the day at work or school, and would rather their nonBlack classmates or coworkers not know they live completely differently online. Completely authentically.

Because white people could never understand playing a character in a video-game. I'm guessing we're using "authentic" in the same way troons do, where it has nothing to do with who you actually are, and instead what you pretend to be.

I walk past the woman in bone armor and spot a character in a dark gray hooded robe that extends about thirty feet behind him. He’s wielding a katana in each hand and has the words JUSTICE FOR TRAYVON written across the back of his robe in bloodred. Not going to lie, his outfit is pretty legit

Please, Trayvon Martin is so last season. We've had what, four black martyrs since then?

The minute I step through the front door, having to duck just to fit into the arena, the people in the stands roar to life. I look up and around the arena in awe. The stands reach so high into the rafters that I can’t see the top on account of the light from the moon, which is directly above us in the night sky. Characters jump and scream, waving veils and scarves and jangling bracelets and jewelry. Anything to attract my attention. I can’t stop looking around. Everyone’s configured their characters to be different shades, from Zendaya to Lupita, and I am living for it.

Rashida Jones is sad. If the player base for this game is anything like who I imagine this tripe, I'm guessing most of these people are actually white lady childrens librarians and Goodreads users. I look forward to when they unzip their disguises like the end of The Wiz.

here’s forehead jewelry and face paint, flowers, feathers, beads, glitter, Afros the size of small vehicles and braids as long and thick as pythons. I spot dashikis, Mursi lip plates, otjize clay, Ulwaluko blankets, Marley twists, Michael Jackson’s glove, and a man in a purple cape twice as tall as me in the front row who’s trying a little too hard to be Prince. And this splendor, this orchestra of Black magnificence, extends all the way up to the ceiling, beyond my vision.

Funny how it's not cultural appropriation when a black person three hundred years removed from Africa just cram whatever shit they want into their game.

Steph would cry tears of joy if she could see this.


To make my way up the steps to the middle of the arena, I march my VR-socked feet against my rug—the rug I asked for last Christmas to cover up the sound of me dueling.

"I got the money for my full body VR gear by prostitution."

What? it's as good an explanation as any.

“Welcome, kings and queens,” the text above my head reads. I wish I could use a mic, but there’s no way I’d be able to keep up the whole “secret identity” thing in a house with walls this thin.

It's almost as though this whole thing is stupid. At least Hannah Montana's dad knew she was a pop-singer.

I’ve seen Zama duel before. She must be a professional martial artist in real life, with access to an entire gymnasium of space, because she can flip across the whole arena and roundhouse-kick her opponents clean out of the ring. Once, in the Rain Forest region, I saw her leap into the air, grab a vine that was hanging in a loop above the arena, and ninja-kick her opponent hard enough to knock six hundred points off the board in a single blow. Her agility and mastery of the cards earned her immediate popularity in SLAY, and now that she’s climbed the ranks to the top of the Tundra warriors roster, her fans have crossed over from a fan base to a cult following.

So this game not only requires extensive VR equipment, but favours players who both have exceptional athletic conditioning and access to loads of space to play? This is the most exclusive woke game I've ever seen. It's like if Baldur's Gate 3 had means testing during installation. Also, isn't this a fucking card game? Isn't this like if if in Magic the Gathering, you could also just jump onto the table and kick the shit out of the other player to win?

Please welcome PrestoBox!”


More applause and booing as I gesture to the Eastern Gate, where a black disk emerges and slides across the floor. It’s like a shadow, but with nothing creating it. It slides right up the steps, headed straight for me. Just as I think it’s going to stop, it slides underneath me. I glance over my shoulder as it emerges from under my sparkly green train and stops beside me. The cheering hasn’t stopped, and it hums louder as a mountain of black lumps rises slowly from the disk, which is shrinking. The lumps slowly take shape into shoulders and a head. Then a face forms—one with a Guy Fawkes mask and a black Zorro hat—they look a bit like No Face from Spirited Away.

Actual Asian people are no doubt kept out of SLAY with highly subjective personal essay questions.

Presto has been accused of hacking because they’ve discovered spells so rare that Cicada was convinced nobody would ever figure them out. To create a spell in SLAY, you have to find specific ingredients, combine them in your inventory in a specific order to make a spell base, and enter codes to add certain qualities to the spell so you can actually use it. Presto managed to unlock a spell that allows you to fly—or more accurately, hover—and everyone flipped out and assumed that since no one had seen it before, it couldn’t be real. But it’s very real. To get it, you have to combine a Pink Crystal from the Tundra region, an Ostrich Feather from the Savanna region, and a rare Foxblood Flower from the Forest region. Then you have to find four numbers on the back of a framed photo in one of the pyramids in the Desert region and enter them into the spell code box backward. Cicada’s idea. She wanted the coolest spells—the ones that let you teleport, see through walls, become invisible, levitate objects, and summon thunder—to be almost impossible to figure out

And then the players get bored and stop playing because all the interesting powers are locked behind moon-logic puzzles.

Before I can enter my next sentence, a loud thunderclap explodes through the arena and a shadow appears over the ring, startling even me. I gasp and suddenly hope my mom didn’t hear me from the hall. PrestoBox has raised their arms and thrown their cape fifty feet in all directions above my head and Zama’s, consuming us in darkness. I look over at PrestoBox, who has revealed their body underneath the cape. They’re wearing the standard black stretchy shorts that every character gets by default, since we can’t have characters walking around naked, and they have gorgeous skin, the color of raw umber, with white body paint made to look like a skeleton from neck to toes.

Head-canon, white body-paint is how the army of white trolls who've infiltrated the game identify each other.

“Kings and queens, you know the drill. We are here first and foremost to celebrate Black excellence in all its forms, from all parts of the globe. We are different ages, genders, tribes, tongues, and traditions. But tonight, we are all Black. And tonight, we all SLAY.”

It's weird to brag about diversity in your segregation MMORPG. I wonder if Australian Aboriginals are allowed to play SLAY, or that one tribe of dark skinned people in China who tend to turn up playing black people in movies in TV? Fuck it, I want to know how Kiera determines who's black enough to play. Is it just based in blood quantums, or would she have to think long and hard about letting the aforementioned Rashida Jones play?

Also, five hundred thousand players, and not one of these guys is say, a streamer who might want to score some cheap views by showing the white folk the weird Wakanda card game?

The rules of duel engagement are simple,” I type. “Each dueler will draw six cards—two Battle cards, two Hex cards, and two Defense cards. Once the cards are drawn, duelers will have ten seconds to determine the order in which they want to use their cards. Duelers will fight using two cards each per round, in any combination they choose. In regular duels, Dueler One will launch attacks at the same time as Dueler Two. But because this is the Tundra Semifinals, and because luck makes everything more interesting, for this match, the dueler who draws the higher initial card will be allowed to use their first two cards five seconds before their opponent in round one. Defense cards beat Battle cards. Battle cards beat Hex cards. In rounds two and three, duelers will launch attacks at the same time, as per normal duel rules. The scores will appear on the Megaboard as the game progresses, and the drums will signal the beginning and end of each round. Is everybody ready?”

Again, I'm not sure how real time, physical combat enters into this system.

Forgive me if I only show you the highlights of this match:

“It’s the Representation card!” I declare, watching the card appear on the Megaboard with the image of three identical silhouettes, since it duplicates the dueler times three. “A Defense card! Zama goes first.”

Surely in this game, playing a Representation card should summon a white monster?

“And finally, remember that little queens and kings are watching. Opponents, respect each other in words and in actions. No trash talk. Let your skills speak for themselves. Now, are you ALL READY?!”

So, there are children playing this game? I find that--with the exception of parental alcoholism and the strange games Uncle Bob plays with them--children are kind of shit at keeping secrets. Also, young kids are probably less likely to be too woke-poisoned to tell their white friends about a game they like.

“Zama has chosen the Gabby Douglas card and the Twist-Out card for a deadly combination. Very nice, but will it withstand PrestoBox’s selections, the Jimi Hendrix card and the Swerve card? We’ll find out in three! Two! One! And begin!”

Gabby Douglas is an American gymnast and Olympic champion. I'm not sure why a book that painstakingly explains what "Slay" means doesn't at least mention that. Also, wait till the African or Bahamian players notice all the actual cultural references beyond imagery are American.

Zama taps the Twist-Out card first, and her hair grows into two monstrous ropes as thick in diameter as Thanksgiving dinner plates, ropes that deal no damage but can render the opponent immobile if they catch them.

I love it when woke people accidentally recreate H.P Lovecraft plot-points.

Zama begins to stumble amid the violet fog. The crowd is loving this, and I’m loving it along with them. Even though I have all the cards’ stats memorized since I wrote most of them, I never know for sure how a match will end. The outcome depends on so many factors besides luck of the draw—aggressiveness, patience, reverse psychology, game theory, character strength, and frankly, how skilled the person behind the character is at using VR equipment.

In other words, how rich and able-bodied you are. Such progress, much woke.

“Come on, Presto,” I urge. My heart skips as I realize I’ve said it in real life, and I lift one headphone to listen to the quiet of my room, just to make sure Mom hasn’t heard me.

Just say you're playing a video-game? Just because you're watching one doesn't mean you invented it.

PrestoBox is off the ground, tapping their second, and last, round one card—the Swerve card, one of my favorites, marked by a black steering wheel as the artwork, since it comes from the expression “swerve,” which means “step off” or “stay in your lane.”

Wouldn't be an ethno-narcissist game without telling people to stay in their lane.

“Honey, I hope you’re studying in there,” she calls.


“Yeah,” I holler, probably a little too fast. “I’m just taking a quick break.”


“Well, dinner’s almost ready anyway. You can take a break with us.”


“Is Dad home already?” I exclaim. It can’t be. It’s only—

"Usually it takes Dad five years to go out for cigarettes!"

I kid, I kid. Kiera wishes she was that hood.

“Fine, just let me finish this show,” instead of what I meant to say: Fine, just let me finish this assignment. I scramble to correct myself. “I’m writing a report on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air and its impact on Black culture in the nineties. I’m kind of in the middle of a train of thought here.”

"This is very nice, Kiera, but this is chemistry class."

Me: Please tell me you’re watching this.


Cicada: Zama and Presto? It’s past midnight here and I have a final exam tomorrow. In other words, wouldn’t miss it.


I smile. I don’t know where Cicada lives, but she’s somewhere in the Central European Time Zone, putting her somewhere south of Norway and north of Nigeria, which doesn’t narrow it down much. I don’t know a lot about her, really, since most of our conversations are strictly business—related to game updates, new cards, landscape artwork, or server maintenance—but I know that I can trust her. She’s been on this SLAY train since the beginning, faithfully moderating matches when I can’t, and it works, since she’s somewhere on the other side of the world. She’s awake when I’m not.

Wouldn't it be an amazing twist if Cicada was a helpful white chick?

“Attention, lovely kings and queens, I leave you in the capable hands of Cicada. Be conscious, and be well.”

You know how woke historians like to remind people they probably would've been a peasant or a serf if they lived in the past?

I love her gown. It’s all white, off shoulder with white fur lining the neckline. A single strip of black fur lines the hood, which is pulled elegantly over her head. Her face is actually devoid of makeup. She just has the base-model face. But sometimes, if she’s feeling spunky, she’ll don the Princess Mononoke mask—the red and white one with the brown eyes. So badass. She’s sitting in the stands, so I can only see her from the torso up, but I’ve seen the gown in all its glory before. She looks like an ice princess. I wonder if she’s bald in real life too.

Fun fact, the reason so many black women go for shaved heads is that, in many African cultures, hair is associated with animals, and thus a civilized person should have as little of it as possible. There's not really a joke there, I just like to provide more interesting context than the book does. Also, I assume manscaping is huge in those cultures.

“Dinner is getting cold!”
“I know, just—” I’m trying to catch my breath after being startled, so I don’t emerge from my room a raging ball of nerves. I’m already sweaty from the excitement of the match. I don’t want to look like I’ve just run a marathon while I’m supposed to be watching Fresh Prince.
“Just, get started without me. I’ll be out in five.”
“If you think you’re going to leave your father and me to listen to this rant about African American Vernacular English by ourselves, you’ve got another think coming.”

"We will not endure this hell alone!"

And with that, this monstrous first chapter finally ends. Oh, by the way, Transhuman Earth Guardian in good standing Alabama Gamer has his own Cringe Side-Quest you should all check out.

 

[IridiumDragon06]

Kiera, our protagonist, struggles with polynomials in high school.

Kiera, our protagonist, has written software that does advanced photorealistic 3D rendering for VR headsets, in real time, and has also written networking code that lets hundreds of thousands of people game together while also putting their inputs into a goddamn physics engine that makes full use of random environmental features, and also can simultaneously handle microsecond pings for cross-continental real-time duels, and is good enough at encryption and security that no horrible nonblack Russian hackers have ransomwared the servers she's renting.

Fuck off, book. I'm by no means an expert on MMOs and this reads...hell, it reads exactly like what the book says it is; it reads like the author disdained reading anything at all about actually building or running a large MMORPG because that would be colonizing, and just assumed that it would work because of Black Girl Magic. Danny from Dreadnought is a more convincing woman than Kiera is a game dev.

That being said, despite the game being apparently literally magic and ignoring the actual technical bits, the game still sounds like a dumpster fire. Bullshit balance based on moon logic unlocks, needing physical space to perform in, and needing to read the designer's mind to know if Twist-Out is countered by Wise Negro Barber or not all make this sound like the author is a weeb who saw an episode of Sword Art Online and Yu-gi-oh and decided to engage in cultural appropriation reparations. (Then again, if you told me that the generally wholesome black interest in DBZ is matched with a whole slew of Malcolm-a-likes who watch Yu-gi-oh exclusively because Dey Wuz Duelists 'n Shit, I'd consider that plausible.)

On the real-world side of things, can people who are more racist than me weigh in on the usage of 'hotep'? I always thought that it literally came from the We Wuz Kangs impulse, being pulled from Egyptian names like Imhotep and Amunhotep and appropriated as a special black version of salaam. As such, hearing it used derisively with someone who keeps referring to kings and queens feels confused to me. A quick dive into knowyourmeme says that hotep blew up as a meme due to a particular hat, with one of the most viral examples of the meme being "Hancock is a movie about how a black man grows weak when he lets a white woman into her life."

So, is the book's definition of hotep a thing, or is it just the author's noircissism kicking into high gear and only noting hotep-ism because one Twitter-ified example of it spoke disparagingly of a woman?

"I got the money for my full body VR gear by prostitution."

That is crass and stereotypical of you. Clearly she's a drug dealer.

Also, just as an aside, I feel like Steph being credentialed as a master debater, in light of the absolute shit-show that race-conscious high school debate has become recently, and the fact that the Only Sane Kid Wyatt clearly and correctly views Steph as not worth talking to at all, reads a lot like an own-goal to me.

---

With regards to the commentary about the many wokeness failures we've seen, and the ones yet to come, I'd like to remind you of the famous train quote: “Democracy is like a tram. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.”

If all you care about is power and spoils for you and yours, it is absolutely unsurprising that you betray the virtuous principles that you invoke to encourage others to give you power. And, though I risk my racist credentials by saying it, I think that most people do generally want the same things. People want to be fit, strong, healthy, and appreciated for who they are. Ideology (woke in this case, but the same thing can happen in others) can often call on people to deny these wants, in order to grant the wants of others instead, that the ideology judges more worthy. But people who reject the ideology entirely, as well as people in the priestly caste of the ideology who set the categories of people, will often sound similar, because neither have their words and views distorted by the ideology.

Also, as another random aside, I've had the tumblr-esque weird fetishization of vitiligo creep out into the real world and be in my face a few times recently, so it's extra-amusing for me to read about continued admiration of powerful, homogenous Nubian skin. It's also a good reminder to me of how much of Woke really is just people trying to seize power and authority by finding something that people around them will feel guilty about, and pushing it as hard as they can for their own benefit.

 

[Sister Miriam Godwinson]

The cringe is so thick I cannot figure out if the author is taking the piss out of the entire Black thing or playing it straight.

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Let me just say for a start that I'm pretty sure you reaaaaally don't want American Kiwis commenting on the current state of race relations, but I'll try to keep this as neutral as possible.

She doesn’t want us to walk into a job interview one day with “Ay, bruh, I ain’t got much ’sperience, but I’ma do what I gotta do to get the job done, you feel me, cuz?” but Steph and I know how to alternate. It’s like speaking two different languages. One when I’m home, FaceTiming Malcolm, and one when I’m at Jefferson, blending in.

Black intellectuals have a fancy term for this. They call it "code-switching". That's Black intellectual speak for "woe is us, we're so oppressed because we have to use different phrases when speaking to different classes of people in different circumstances", id est, the experience that every single person in the history of ever who has had more than one social circle has had. Bit of a TMI here, but I'm a metalworker by trade. When I'm on the clock I communicate mainly by various conjugations of the verb "to fuck". But I don't talk like that at church, believe it or not. I think that qualifies me to understand the Black experience.

I am genuinely curious what is it with black people (or maybe Americans in general) with sneakers.

It's mainly a black thing. For a brief period in the mid-oughts it was kind of a thing for kids in general, but at the time this book was written it was definitely just a black thing. I can't even think of anything particularly racist to say about it, it's just a status symbol and all cultures have those. Hats are another one, for some reason a pristine flat-brimmed baseball cap (bonus points if the manufacturer's stickers are all still attached, don't ask my why) is a big deal.

“Fine, whatever.” He shrugs. “I’ve got some decolonizing to do anyway. S’called The 48 Laws of Power. Robert Greene. You heard of it?”

This is actually a deep cut. The 48 Laws of Power is a weird cult phenomenon in certain black circles. Robert Greene is a Jewish author (trying really hard to restrain myself here) who basically wrote The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Black Pseudointellectuals. (Or, if you're a webcomic aficionado, The 70 Maxims of Maximally Effective Gangbangers.) It's weird because it isn't even black-specific, they just really like it. Supposedly it's one of the most requested books in prison libraries, and that's a whole other can of worms. Put it this way, one of the sequels to that book was a collab with 50 Cent. (Incidentally, if we go this entire book without a 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand reference, I shall be quite disappointed.)

Is it a private school, or a public one and his family edged into the catchment area?

The American school system is a fucking mess, believe it or not. From the description we've got so far it could either be a private school, a charter school (an autonomous school that's publically funded; they tend to have really high standards for admission) or a magnet school (a public school for specialized studies that draws qualified students from multiple districts). School has stopped looking like a real word now, so I'll summarize: United State have much different kinds of special teach buildings what for to make smart kids learn extra good. Alternatively, it could possibly be a public teach building in a teach building district (now teach has stopped looking like a word too, fuck) that's in a high property value area. Most public education in the US is funded by local property taxes. (And that's a whole chicken and egg situation the explanation of which would get even further off topic.)

Malcom's brand of black separatism alienates other members of the woke coalition with its social conservatism, therefore, he is the enemy.

It's honestly a bit of a whiplash to read because that flavor of black nationalism hasn't been relevant for *checks watch* sixty years or so. Like, up until the late 60s/early 70s, reactionary black separatism was a big deal. It created one of the iconic strange bedfellows situations of American racial politics where the black separatists and the white supremacists skipped gaily down the lane hand in hand talking about how great it would be if all black people went back to Africa and how much they hated Jews. For instance, Marcus Garvey was good pals with the Klan. The Commander of the American Nazi Party, George Lincoln Rockwell, once gave the keynote speech at a Nation of Islam convention, which gave us potentially the best photograph of the decade.

For various reasons black nationalism got co-opted into its modern "mobilized lumpenproletariat" state over the decades, to the point that outside of a few weirdos the philosophy that Malcolm espouses has no influence whatsoever.

Finally, since you've generously broken the ice on shilling my direct-to-streaming shitty spinoff, I'll just provide a clearnet link for those not on TOR.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Let me just say for a start that I'm pretty sure you reaaaaally don't want American Kiwis commenting on the current state of race relations, but I'll try to keep this as neutral as possible.

Oh, do whatever you like, man.

Kind of ironic someone who's clearly from Innsmouth was so against race-mixing.

 

[FuckMeGentlyWithAChainsaw]

It's funny how how a white chick asking about dreadlocks leads the protagonist to a nearly shutdown with anxiety, but then she also programmed a game where North Americans get to play African tribal dress-up with lip plates, bone armor and voodoo priests.
Given the price of VR and how you need a big place to play you'd think someone would realize how this game is exclusivly for middle and upper class brats all roleplaying as ghetto stereotypes or national geographic exhibits.
Maybe there will be a plot twist how everyone is just white racists enjoying playing in blackface.

 

[SNEED.EXE]

“Fine, whatever.” He shrugs. “I’ve got some decolonizing to do anyway. S’called The 48 Laws of Power. Robert Greene. You heard of it?”

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Given how woke this book is, the fact the main character dared include a "Vodoo queen" as a class is quite suprising.

I actually know a little bit about this. Voodoo (the Official Woke Spelling is Vodun, pronounced exactly the same but we need to distance ourselves from colonizer Anglicization) is an actual religion, broadly speaking. There's at least three different kinds of Voodoo: the original West African pagan religions, the Haitian syncretic variant, and the Southeast American syncretic variant (sometimes called Hoodoo). All of them are matriarchal, but especially so in the case of Voodoo Classic. The "queen" (an inaccurate translation, but it sounds important) is the head of the leading female line and serves an important role as high priestess of the tribe. "Voodoo queen" being a character class is like "Catholic archbishop" being one. (Come to think of it, at the time this book was written the leading opponent of liberalization in the Roman Catholic Church was a prominent African cardinal from French Guinea. I wonder if we'll see any references to him in the game.)

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

Absconding from your duties to delve into another book? The cringe gods expected more from you, Kettle...

Why do none of these YA books know how to make an interesting introduction? It's always 'Briefly mention the plot and then fuck about telling us which character is woke enough'. Dreadnought at least quickly got to the 'Superhero legend dies, introduces the main antagonist and gives the protagonist super powers'.

Piss off! "Oh, some artists who liked my game just provided me assets on par with a major studio." Real-talk here, I'm actually working with an artist to illustrate my first book, and if I asked her to "donate" some art, she'd cut my nuts off! Which ironically would probably make it easier for me to land a lit-agent, but still!

Have you tried paying in exposure?

Remember, this game is the afterschool and weekend project one one high-schooler. And no, as far as I can tell, this doesn't take place in the near-future where AI can do most of the work.

Even Kickstarter MMO scams are calling this bullshit.

Also, this game has five-hundred thousand players. How are we supposed to believe no white people have heard of it? Hell, how do Keira and Cicada even check all these people are black? Do you have to send your 23&Me results? Photo-ID? Do they use blockchain?

Well, considering the 'Whiteness' chart and the Black Panther, I'd assume that they hone in on any user that's soft-spoken, productive and otherwise doesn't yell while beating their chest like a gorilla.

Yes, readers at home, this is a book about a secret Yu-Gi-Oh Illuminati for black people, which granted sounds like an amazing Key and Peele sketch.

It's real tolerant how this author feels like every common or obvious phrase needs a dedicated explanation for those uneducated black folk.

And then the players get bored and stop playing because all the interesting powers are locked behind moon-logic puzzles.

Like Ready Play One the writer who knows only surface level shit about games and thus doesn't know that it would be, at most, a week before a hundred walkthroughs were being passed between players as they break the game open.

Plus, it's not gonna be much of a fair or entertaining fight if one player can just have all the secret OP moves.

It's weird to brag about diversity in your segregation MMORPG.

KKK meetings are more subtle than this.

Gabby Douglas is an American gymnast and Olympic champion. I'm not sure why a book that painstakingly explains what "Slay" means doesn't at least mention that. Also, wait till the African or Bahamian players notice all the actual cultural references beyond imagery are American.

Other games would give you a slew of interesting sounding or looking creatures/concepts to put on your collectable cards; this game is about as interesting as football cards.

 

[Sister Miriam Godwinson]

When I log in, there are 641 new DMs in my SLAY inbox.

Ah lovely, abuse and bug reports. Assume it takes her 1 minute to log, review, and fix each. That's 11 hours of work right there, but hey, time management is a whitey thing, am I right? What's Jira?

 

[LoverofPi]

I think it would have been less absurd if we'd just been asked to assume the main character was a comic book style tech and science super genius because that's about the only way this MMORPG as coded by a single kid in suburban Seattle makes any sense.

It's weird to brag about diversity in your segregation MMORPG. I wonder if Australian Aboriginals are allowed to play SLAY, or that one tribe of dark skinned people in China who tend to turn up playing black people in movies in TV? Fuck it, I want to know how Kiera determines who's black enough to play. Is it just based in blood quantums, or would she have to think long and hard about letting the aforementioned Rashida Jones play?

I think she'd immediately reject Rashida and accept her sister Kikada, until you pointed out that they are in fact sisters, THEN the thinking would happen. It's about "Being Black" not "African Ancestry" after all.

Also there's no way there aren't a ton of white kids and trolls playing this game.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

Got around half of it before tapping out. The author sounds like a black girl that basically never interacted with poor black people and instead lived in a close community with expensive education system, where she used her race (which is probably not full black) as a badge, a shield and a mace to get what she wants. The book is basically "how it's going fellow nigros" with the author seeing herself as a messiah to uplift blacks to white standards (not that she'll dare say it like that). That's why the game is some bullshit Yu Gi Oh wannabe when the idea that black women actually watch anime is a complete myth. All while being ignorant of how hard making thing is, and just relegating every ability as basically magic (a trend that isn't going away any time soon".

 

[Alabama Gamer]

Because this is a book about black kids that came out in 2019, naturally it almost immediately launches into a weirdly defensive bit about hair. Seriously, there are literally dozens of picture-books out there about how great and special black people's hair is. There was a New York Times article about how horse-riding helmets are supposedly incompatible with black-riders, as though that's not the most bougie, niche complaint in the entire universe.

It's even worse than you think. 21 American states, including some incredibly "conservative" ones, have passed laws to protect the sanctity of capital-B Black hair. In almost half of the Union it is illegal to ask our saintly class to adhere to any sort of grooming standards.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Steph is talking at us again, this time recalling a debate she had with Holly Little, the treasurer of Beta Beta, about Martin Luther King. I love my little sister, I really do, but she could talk about Dr. King for hours if we let her. Literally hours. There are few things I’d like less than to listen to that right now.

“And so then,” Steph says around a mouthful of rice, “I asked Holly if she’d ever actually read anything by MLK, like really read it, because if she had read MLK, she’d know he wasn’t the patron saint of complacency like she was insinuating, and that he made it clear that there’s a time and a place for revolt.

Yeah, Nazi Germany. No really, something King wrote about was how non-violent resistance tends to work better in societies where the Powers That Be have some compunctions against firing into unarmed protesters. Oddly enough, he seemed to think a violent uprising wasn't worth it in the 1960s, a time where people would just straight-up firebomb black churches. I somehow doubt he'd think it was a better idea in a time where some people consider it racist for a show about Vikings to have no black people in it.

You always know it's Martin Luther King Day in the States when all the white liberals on Twitter start posting the MLK letter about how rubbish white liberals are. Yeah, MLK was a leftist, with many views that would be contentious in the modern American political scene. He would also postpone or cancel demonstrations if he thought they'd affect the electoral chances of pro civil-rights candidates. He was as much a pragmatist as a radical. He was also a trade-unionist, concerned with actual material conditions, not whatever the fuck Keira and Steph are.

So then Holly asked me if I was advocating for the destruction of infrastructure—you know, like when Black people loot stores after an unarmed Black person is killed and their killer is acquitted, and do you know what I asked her?”

Before any of us has a chance to guess, she’s answering her own question.

“I asked her if she thinks it’s worse than when white people loot stores after their team loses a big game.”

Steph throws her hands up as if she’s inviting the rest of us to test her.

“Boom,” she says, picking up the spoon.

I assume Holly replied "I think looting and robbing innocent people who had nothing to do with who pissed you off is always fucked" and Steph was laughed out of the room? I see this sort of bullshit argument a lot. "You think Desmond is Amazing is being exploited and sexualised? You think masectomies for teenage girls are bad? Well, what about child paegants and teenagers getting nose jobs?"

Yes! I hate those things too, for much the same reasons! The only reason you think that kind of whataboutism is a winner is because you assume everyone's morality is as tribal and self-serving as yours!

It's also the definition of a luxury belief. Steph and Keira are the children of well-to-do professionals who live in a very nice neighbourhood, and go to a very good school. For them, riots and looting might as well be Hunger Games filmed gurrelia-style. They'll never have to worry about being injured and killed in crossfire, or being plunged into poverty by their workplace being totalled, or buisnesses withdrawing from the neighbourhood.

So, time to powerlevel a bit. I was still hanging out in leftist Discords when the George Floyd shit was going down. There was this rapper from Atlanta, who went on TV to earnestly plead for the rioters to stop, because a lot of the buisnesses they were looting were black-owned. Naturally, in this server, I saw a lot of people debating whether the guy was a sell-out, or if Atlanta was, and I quote, "uniquely set-up for Black success." As though successful black people didn't exist outside of the Holy Land.

I eat my peas and cut into my chicken with the edge of my fork. It’s tender and melts right off the bone, and when I put it in my mouth, it’s salty and buttery. My mom has managed to redefine the concept of baked poultry, and one day I hope to learn how she does it. Auntie Tina can do it too. Granny could make it. In fact, I’m sitting here realizing that every woman in my family knows how to make this chicken but me, and I’m hoping it’s genetic and one day I’ll just know how to make it. I’ve considered adding some kind of chicken-related SLAY card to the game, maybe as a Hex card, because I swear it’s like a drug. But people would riot. I can hear them now:

Chicken isn’t necessarily a Black thing!

Some of us are vegetarian!

All this talk of Black excellence, and you reduce us to a chicken trope!

Unlike crime and looting, which are the true authentic black experence.

I honestly find the origins of the "black people love fried chicken" thing interesting, and even a bit poignant. So, after emancipation, a lot of ex-slaves had to support themselves on small parcels of very marginal land. Cattle is very expensive to raise. Pigs are cheaper, but chickens grow fast, give you eggs on the regular, and live on basically anything. So, a lot of black people took to raising chickens for meat, and fried chicken--which was of course already a southern staple--became associated with them. And of course, as that great chronicler of the black experience, Dave Chappelle, pointed out, fried chicken is delicious. Why shouldn't black people like it?

I take another bite of chicken and realize Steph is talking about Beta Beta now.
“New member initiation is next week, and I’m so excited. There’s a sista joining us. I don’t know much about her, but her name is Jazmin, and I know we’re going to be best friends because she loves A Million Ways like I do, and she knows all the members and all their choreography. I know that much from Holly—”

"A Million Ways"? The OK Go song? I tried look it up and see if there was a band called that, but all I could find was the song. Google kept thinking I was looking up A Million Ways to Die in the West.

“The same Holly that you had to set straight about Dr. King?” asks Dad. “If she’s confused about Dr. King, how can you trust the rest of her sources?”

He somehow finds a way to get his opinion in with Steph when Mom and I fail to, which I always find impressive.

Oh, so he's where they get it from.

He’s an analyst at Gutenberg Enterprises, one of the largest paper manufacturing plants in the continental US, and I can’t imagine what he’s paid to do as an analyst except analyze things to death all day. Maybe that’s why he gets along so well with Steph.

So, this is their dad?

Nah, Stanely was way too based for this family.

He takes another bite. His salt-and-pepper mustache swishes side to side as he chews, and he shakes his head.

“Mm-mm-mm,” he marvels. “Are y’all eating the same chicken I am? Is nobody going to thank your mother for this gift from the cornucopia of Demeter?”

“Thanks, Mom,” I laugh. Steph nods and covers her mouth to say politely, “Thanks, Mom. This is really good.”

Dad knows how to get a smile out of me, Steph, and Mom, whose face is glowing now.

“Oh, it’s just a li’l salt.” She shrugs humbly, her eyes cast down to her plate as she slides her knife through the middle of the chicken like butter. “Li’l mayonnaise.”

“If you gave me salt, mayonnaise, and chicken, I wouldn’t bring back something like this,” Dad says with a smile. He shakes his head and does that thing where he looks like he’s wincing in pain and then he jerks his head in a weird way and lets out a “WHOO-WEE!”

Also, Stanley would die before showing this much enthusiasm for anything. Still, at least he understands chicken is better than race-narccisim.

I still haven’t figured out what that’s for. I suddenly remember the text I got earlier that I forgot to check. It’s hard to remember to text real-life people back when there’s a world of dueling magical beings in your room.

If Kiera loses all grip on reality and starts ranting about the dimensional merge, I am here for it.

I unlock my phone and realize the text is a mile long. Of course it is. It’s from Harper.

Harper: Hey . Mind helping me with polynomials? Even my app isn’t picking it up . I even asked Wyatt 4 help, and u know how desperate I have 2 be 2 do that, but he wouldn’t even look at it!!!! He says he’s “too busy” playing Legacy of Planets!!! Like WTF dude???!

Outside of tutoring lessons, Harper is always asking me for math help. Not because she can’t understand it, but because she doesn’t take the time to hash it out. When we studied trig last quarter, I refused to help her with the first problem of any of the sections until she’d sat there looking at it for at least two minutes, which didn’t really work because she always whipped out her math app well before the two-minute mark. Everyone uses the Mathdeco app, and the website version of the app for homework, and I’m pretty sure the teachers have figured that out, because you can’t use either of those on the tests, and this year the tests are worth 100 percent of our grade, and the homework is worth zilch.

If Harper's so lazy, why is she bothering with homework that doesn't even contribute to her grade?

Me: Sorry YES I’ll help u later g2g
I should have thrown in a heart emoji to cushion how short the text was. Harper loves emojis, and I mean she really can’t get enough of them. Last Halloween she wanted me to be a heart eyes emoji, while she was the crying laughing emoji. She asked Malcolm to join us, but he said he’d only do it if he got to be the eggplant emoji, which I thought was funny. Harper called the whole thing off at the very suggestion.

God bless Malcolm for preventing that from manifesting in our world. Harper is definitely the Kayla of this book. Actually, insane race-paranoiac thought, is Harper a jab at Harper Lee? You know, the lady who wrote about a misscarriage of justice involving a black dude in To Kill a Mockingbird?

I can hear Mom from the hall.

“Kiera, I’m sure you’ve been wondering all evening why we’re all home early.” She comes back into the room, still wearing her blue scrubs, holding a huge blue-and-white envelope against her chest like it’s a newborn baby. I look at her face, at those pearly white teeth in that smile a mile wide, and I realize what the letter is.

Steph blurts out a startlingly loud “Is that from Spelman?!” before I can say anything. I just sit in my chair, petrified, staring at the envelope. My hands feel sticky, and I’m suddenly not hungry. I think I’m both nervous and excited at the same time, but both those emotions feel like nausea and heart palpitations, so it’s hard to tell. I think of what I should text Malcolm if I get in. I think of what to text Malcolm if I don’t get in. Mom is holding the envelope out to me with a smile, expecting me to take it and rip it open like it’s Christmas morning the way Steph did when she got the election results declaring her president of Beta Beta Psi.

I refuse to believe Beta Beta Psi is an official Greek society. Or that it has more than four members.

I reach up and take the envelope and realize my hands are shaking. What am I so afraid of? A yes means I’m going to Spelman! I get to be with Malcolm in Atlanta while he goes to Morehouse! We’ll be going to historically Black colleges in Atlanta that are literally two minutes apart. We’ve even talked about getting our own place together on either campus. It’s what we’ve always wanted. It’s all he’s been talking about lately—being with me. I can envision it now: he’ll wave at me across the street between classes, we’ll make out in the plaza over lunch break, just the two of us on the grass in the hot Atlanta sun, and we’ll share a bed at night. The idea is so romantic it sends a flutter through my chest.

I was rewatching Futurama recently, and when I got to "The Deep South" I thought to myself, "Man, this episode would be way different if it was made today, now that people talk about Atlanta like Zion for black-people. Well, aside from the Black Israelites who think Zion is for black people."

Okay, I added the last bit.

But a no would mean all kinds of things I’m too afraid to think about, namely Malcolm’s disappointment. I didn’t tell him I applied to Emory, which is also in Atlanta, as a backup school. If I can’t attend the historically Black college next door to him, I might as well try for the sub−Ivy League school down the street, right? So we can at least be close to each other?

So the only actual stakes here are that Kiera might have to interact with some white people while attending an Oxford college?

But shortly after I sent out the last of my college applications, he and I found ourselves lying under the stars on the trampoline in my backyard, dreaming together, when he looked over at me and asked where I’d applied. Something deep within me—call it intuition, call it vibes, call it psychic powers—guided me to answer simply, “Spelman.”

He rolled over to face me, barefoot, in a T-shirt and sweats, with his legs curled up and one arm tucked under his head, smiling at me, and said, “I only applied to Morehouse. I ain’t going nowhere but an HBCU.” Curious, I asked him why. He sucked his teeth and said, “Any non-HBCU would be a continuation of Jefferson.” And then, when I smiled at him, because I totally feel him on that assessment, he reached up and brushed my cheek and said, “If I can’t learn around my people, I can’t really learn,” and pulled me close and kissed me.

Imagine if someone in the last forty years wrote a YA book where a white kid who went to a majority-minority high school said they hoped they went to a really white college, because they found black or Hispanic kids distracting, and his girlfriend, the protagonist, agreed with him. I'd say they'd be crucified, but that feels like underselling the response. They'd probably be given the blood eagle.

My eyes zoom to the very first word under Dear Ms. Johnson:
The word Congratulations.

Oh, I get what this is. Kiera's about to start bleeding from her eyes, and the rest of this will be that shit Wonder Woman pilot.

“I’m so excited!” she squeals. “Spelman! My sister is going to an HBCU just like me!”

“Didn’t know you were dead set on going to an HBCU,” I say, since I actually wasn’t aware until just now. Steph is super smart. She’s ambitious, even for a junior. Not only is she president of her chapter, but she’s a Scripps National Spelling Bee winner, and she already won a partial scholarship from a robotics project she built as a sophomore last year. Pretty sure she could get into Harvard if she wanted to.

“Duh,” she laughs, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I’m down for the cause. I want us to succeed.”

"Black people cannot suceed against, or even among people of other colours. I am an antiracist."

I’m going to Spelman for two reasons only: First, Malcolm. My love. My life. The only boy I know I can be myself around. The only one who gets me. Second, I’m sick of white people. Actually, that’s not true—I love all people.

"Which is why I don't let most of them even look upon my game."

I’m sick and tired of being the only Black girl among all white people. I want to be around people who understand me and don’t expect me to answer asinine questions every day. Steph and I, as the only two Black girls at Jefferson, are the be-all and end-all authority on all things related to Black culture. Steph’s popularity attracts inquiring minds, and since she “only answers ridiculous questions with ridiculous answers,” as she puts it, they flock to me as a second resort.

And who created the expectation that they needed to ask you about anything? This is like the Pope complaining about all these South Americans asking him about spiritual matters.

Lucy Ingwall, a freshman, the oldest student I tutor after Harper, once asked me, If I wear this headdress to this festival, is it going to offend people? I told her I didn’t know because I’m not Native and am therefore unqualified to answer that question.

I mean, you probably know enough woke scripture to know the answer is probably "yes."

She became increasingly insistent that I was the only one who could provide credible input into her outfit, because she needed the opinion of a person of color and she didn’t want to talk to the only Native American kid at Jefferson because she didn’t know him that well.

Plus, he's probably busy correcting people who read House of Night. Again, no reflection that maybe, just maybe, it's weird to have to ask strangers for permission to dress how you want at a function they aren't even attending.

And then she asked me why the phrase “person of color” is okay, but “colored person” is not. I’m just trying to figure out what the difference is, she’d said, as if she expects me to just know how to define terms that generalize my cultural history generations back.

Notice that Kiera doesn't even try to offer an explanation for why "person of color" is so much better than "coloured person" and is in fact offended by the suggestion that she ought to have one. This is because there is no reason, progressivm is just dominated by a mystic social constructivist cult that thinks if all terms describing oppression, hardship, misfortune, or even basic reality are replaced with ever more gramatically unwiedly subsitutes, they'll cease to exist. It's how we went from "homeless" to "unhoused" to "person experiencing houselessnes."

In SLAY, all I have to explain to people is how the game works. I don’t have to explain the cards. If you play the game, you understand.

Wait for it.

All this time, I’ve imagined a similar world at Spelman. So where’s the warm, fuzzy sense of accomplishment I thought I’d feel reading this letter? Where’s the relief? My hands are shaking. There’s a knot in my stomach. Whatever I thought I’d feel after tearing open that envelope and reading that blessed word “Congratulations,” it wasn’t this.

That's because you accidentally applied to the Spellman College run by this gentleman:

Later that night, as I’m tying up my twist-out into a pineapple and Steph is trying to gab at me with her mouth full of toothpaste foam, I stare at the bathroom counter, wondering if I should add more cards. Zama was wielding Twist-Out like she’d used it hundreds of times, and pairing it with the Gabby Douglas was a stroke of genius. Nobody wants to fight an Olympic gymnast wielding sentient hair.

Again, why am I, a Kiwi-Farmer, more concerned with how disabled or less physically adroit people fair in this game than the fucking woke dev? Jim Sterling wishes he was allowed to bitch about this game.

The last time Cicada and I launched new cards, we tried to give everyone a voice via a poll. We put fifty card options on the board and asked chat to vote for the top twenty results. The comments section blew up immediately. Everyone had an opinion. Every card on the board was antiprogress or tropey, or cheesy, or insulting, or boring, or inapplicable to everyone. I’ve always tried to choose concepts that edify all of us, but it’s getting harder and harder to think of things every single one of us can relate to. People in Kenya may not identify with a good ol’-fashioned Tennessee barbecue, and people in the US may not understand the nuances of an Ulwaluko ceremony, and when you have to memorize six cards in ten seconds, the less you have to google, the better. Characters were fighting, and nobody was voting, and I got so fed up that I pulled the whole thing, picked my own favorite cards, and posted a message in the next update that read: We are a diaspora. We span hundreds of shades, religions, traditions, and cultural nuances. If you don’t understand what some of these cards mean, blame the slave trade.

So, the only reason black people around the world aren't a broad American monoculture is because of the slave trade? Man, I couldn't be more racist than this book if I tried. And I am! Looks like SLAY isn't actually a utopia of mutual understanding, Kiera just gets whatever she wants because she and Cicada somehow pulled this whole thing out of their arses. Also:

I'd like to remind you of the famous train quote: “Democracy is like a tram. You ride it until you arrive at your destination, then you step off.”

Iridium, give yourself a hand. While Kiera is putting the Africans in their place like a good Americo-Liberian, her sister is rambling about other shit that doesn't matter:

“Okay.” She shrugs. “So, I was talking to Holly and Harper about this new rap song Holly was listening to. I don’t even remember who it’s by—some no-name guy with a mixtape—and Holly actually asked if I could translate for her. Get this. From ‘Ebonics,’ she said. Ebonics! She asked if I could translate it into something ‘plain English.’ I just left. I walked right out of the room.”

Steph rolls her eyes like she’s trying to get them stuck facing the back of her head and lets out the most exasperated sigh I’ve heard in a while.

“I mean, come on!” she continues. “And then I got to thinking how racist the word ‘Ebonics’ is. Well, maybe not racist, but marginalizing! Otherizing! I mean, if I claimed everybody on The Office was speaking ‘White-a-nese,’ they’d feel pretty called out.

I think most white people would actually laugh, because we're still expected to have a sense of humour about this kind of shit. Also, The Office is kind of a weird example to use. Aside from there being a bunch of non-white people in the regular cast, white people being clueless about race was a pretty common joke on that show. Hell, one of the first episodes was about Michael Scott getting into trouble for using the n-word while quoting Chris Rock. One of the creators was an Indian woman! Although, since then, Mindy Kaling seems to have gone mad, forgotten how to be funny, and now thinks all white men are early-season Michael Scott.

Steph has been getting louder and louder this whole time, and I debate whether to point this out, likely prompting an even louder Did you even hear a word I said?! or let her keep jumping decibels on her own until one or both of my parents creak open the bathroom door and scold us. I find an alternative to both.

“Sounds like you have your Spelman essay topic for your application next year,” I say. I have a finite amount of energy, none of which I intend to spend on debating what to call the framework of Black American colloquialisms. I care more about erasing the stigmas around how some of us speak.

Remember that episode of Red Dwarf where there's two Rimmers, and they both hate each other?

I realize all over again just how bad an idea it would be to show Steph the game. I can see her now, psychoanalyzing every word in chat, overthinking everything about the environment, every card, applying science where there’s currently raw passion and joy. What about SLAYers who haven’t caught the AAVE train yet? I can see her now, correcting people’s word choices, with the best of intentions, of course. But if everyone found out it was my sister, Emerald’s sister, policing everyone’s language left and right, my reputation could dissolve instantly. I shake my head just as my phone buzzes in my pocket. My heart skips at the possibility of a text from Malcolm inviting me to share a FaceTime call tonight. I suddenly regret washing off my makeup so soon. I reach for my phone, unlock it, and realize the only notification is in WhatsApp.

The hypocrisy is delicious. I still love how desperately Morris is trying to convince us the secret game dev thing makes sense as a character decision.

Cicada: Zama wins with the Hustle card!

Not the damn Hustle card again! It’s one I wish I’d never let Cicada add to the game, but she’d insisted. The Hustle is the name of a dance popular in the seventies, which was apparently my mom’s signature dance the few times she went on Soul Train.

Kiera's mum went on Soul Train? More than once? Damn, her life is instantly more interesting than Kiera's.

Hustle & Flow is the name of a movie on BuzzFeed’s list of “100 movies you must see to keep your Black card,” and although I’ve never seen the movie, Cicada has. She confirmed that yes, it should be on that list.

Kiera imbibing black culture mainly through Buzzfeed listicles makes a lot of sense.

She convinced me the word “Hustle” warrants a card, but it’s arguably the dirtiest one in the whole deck. It steals 50 percent of the opponent’s points, and Zama used it in the last round! I suck my teeth and type out a furious reply:

Me: That’s BS! Using a Hustle card in the last round with a game this close? I thought these two were professionals! Sometimes I think we should delete that card.

Cicada: I mean, hey, she was dealt a Hustle card. She had to use it. Wouldn’t you save a Hustle card for the last round too? It’s really the smartest strategy.

If you forgot, victory in SLAY is determined by who has the most points at the end of three rounds. I'm not a game-design expert, but that sounds amazingly broken. Pretty much any close-match would instantly go to whoever has a Hustle card handy. Also, c'mon, you have a card that sucks the victory-points out of your appointment, and it's not named after
Ganja & Hess the 1973 vampire movie commonly called "the first black arthouse film?" Or hell, The Black Vampyre; A Legend of St. Domingo an abolitionist novel from the early 19th century about a murdered slave who comes back as a vampire to get revenge on his owner. It's often called the first American vampire novel.

Yes, I can bring vampires into anything, why do you ask?

“You look mad. Is it Malcolm again?” asks Steph as she massages night cream into her face. “

Why would I be mad at Malcolm?” I ask, trying to keep my composure. Why is she always trying to be in my business?

"Because almost every time you bring him up in narration, sis, it's to chastise him for WrongThink."

“You know,” I begin, testing the waters, “you and Malcolm have similar opinions on HBCUs. You both want to attend one. You might like him if you gave him a chance, Steph.”

“Oh, I’m sure,” she says, smoothing the last visible smears of cream into her eyebrows. “Let me guess. He thinks HBCUs are the only way to go because”—she dons her mockingly deep Malcolm-imitation voice—“that’s how we Black folk woulda been learning before the ‘white man’ got ahold of us and colonized our minds.”

Something about her tone—the exaggerated drawl—sets off alarms in my head, and I suddenly feel myself getting angry. Malcolm talks like he grew up in SoDo. He doesn’t shuck and jive like a damn minstrel performer. I suddenly regret even trying to smooth things over between the two of them. Maybe it’s hopeless. I force myself to stay quiet. But Steph’s face softens, and she turns to look at me, seemingly surprised at herself.

I don't know, that seems like a pretty good Malcolm impression.

“Sorry,” she says. “Here I am talking about tone policing and ‘otherizing’ language and then I go and make fun of Malcolm’s accent. I didn’t mean to, and I’m sorry.”
I smile, and relief washes over me at the faint glimmer of hope, but it’s short-lived.

I refuse to believe black teenage sisters, even upper-crust, politically engaged sisters, talk to each other like this.

“But,” she says, twisting the lid back onto her night cream and tossing it in the top drawer, “I stand by what I said. He thinks HBCUs are the way to go because he wants to live in this fantasy world where white people don’t exist. I, the realist, think HBCUs are the way to go because they give funding and opportunities to Black prodigies worldwide, and because we need to take care of our own. I said I’m always mad at Malcolm, and I meant it. Mostly because I don’t entertain illogical conspiracy theories or believe straight men are the center of the universe. And I don’t trust a man with ashy ankles.”

Steph, apparently slightly more based than Kiera.

Once I brush my teeth, floss, and apply my nighttime moisturizer, I climb into bed. As I lie under the covers, scrolling through Instagram, I think back to what Steph said earlier, about HBCUs: I’m down for the cause. I want us to succeed.

I keep scrolling without really looking. Steph is convinced that she’s proving something by pursuing an HBCU—proving that she’s down for the cause, that she’s rooting for everybody Black. Does she think that in order to be “down for the cause,” I have to go to an HBCU? To want us to succeed, I have to go to an HBCU? Is that right? What if I hadn’t applied to Spelman at all? As Malcolm—and apparently Steph—doesn’t know, there are probably woke Black girls at Emory, too, who are “down for the cause” and support Black businesses and maybe even program Afrocentric video games. What if Emory says yes to my application and I go there instead? What would Steph think of me?

What would Malcolm think of me?

Kiera's definitely going to hook up with Cicada, isn't she?

Malcolm: See you tomorrow. Until then, listen to this and miss me.

And then that song he attached. We should be FaceTiming right now. He should be singing this song to me right now in that corny faux R & B voice of his.

But I thought Malcolm didn't shuck and jive like that!

If I tell him, he’ll want to talk tonight, about how excited I am to be going to one of the most prestigious historically Black colleges in the country, about how grateful I am to be going to a college that’s a sweet relief from the burden of being Jefferson’s resident Black culture consultant.

Because someone who makes themselves the queen of a black-supremacist MMORPG hates being the centre of attention because of their race.

I don’t feel any of that. Not right now. Maybe it hasn’t hit me yet, the weight of it. Maybe it’s like finding out you’ve been crowned homecoming queen. Maybe the bliss of it won’t sink in until I’m up there onstage at my high school graduation in a cap and gown, and the principal is announcing to all those kids and parents that the first Black girl to graduate from Jefferson is going to study among her own people now, because she’s done her time and deserves some reprieve.

Because apparently Jefferson High was desegregated by the National Guard in 2016. Still, I do feel for Kiera. What white people could ever understand her love for Michael Jackson, Prince, and Hayao Miyazaki? Also, how bullshit is it that SLAY has a Miyazaki cosmetic, but no Goku card? What kind of black video game is this?

Next chapter, we meet Cicada. No, she isn't a Swedish chick, sadly. But before that, I promise I'll put out another House of Night post. Don't cry for me, I'm already dead.

 

[TheAmbiguousLurker]

Steph is talking at us again, this time recalling a debate she had with Holly Little, the treasurer of Beta Beta, about Martin Luther King. I love my little sister, I really do, but she could talk about Dr. King for hours if we let her. Literally hours. There are few things I’d like less than to listen to that right now.

Bold of the story to constantly admit that none of their characters have any personality other than talking points.

I should have thrown in a heart emoji to cushion how short the text was. Harper loves emojis, and I mean she really can’t get enough of them. Last Halloween she wanted me to be a heart eyes emoji, while she was the crying laughing emoji. She asked Malcolm to join us, but he said he’d only do it if he got to be the eggplant emoji, which I thought was funny. Harper called the whole thing off at the very suggestion.

Ah, we finally found the target audience for the Emoji Movie.

We’ll be going to historically Black colleges in Atlanta that are literally two minutes apart.

Really, this is why white people are thought to have no culture, because white writers don't sperg about their culture and their skin colour as these writers do.

“Didn’t know you were dead set on going to an HBCU,” I say, since I actually wasn’t aware until just now.

As oppose to saying you didn't know because you actually did know.

“But,” she says, twisting the lid back onto her night cream and tossing it in the top drawer, “I stand by what I said. He thinks HBCUs are the way to go because he wants to live in this fantasy world where white people don’t exist. I, the realist, think HBCUs are the way to go because they give funding and opportunities to Black prodigies worldwide, and because we need to take care of our own. I said I’m always mad at Malcolm, and I meant it. Mostly because I don’t entertain illogical conspiracy theories or believe straight men are the center of the universe. And I don’t trust a man with ashy ankles.”

"I'm a bigoted assclown too, but even I know that I can't avoid the white man forever."

I think back to what Steph said earlier, about HBCUs: I’m down for the cause. I want us to succeed.

Do you boring mother fuckers do anything for reasons other than your pathetic need to feel important to 'the cause'?

You always know it's Martin Luther King Day in the States when all the white liberals on Twitter start posting the MLK letter about how rubbish white liberals are. Yeah, MLK was a leftist, with many views that would be contentious in the modern American political scene. He would also postpone or cancel demonstrations if he thought they'd affect the electoral chances of pro civil-rights candidates. He was as much a pragmatist as a radical. He was also a trade-unionist, concerned with actual material conditions, not whatever the fuck Keira and Steph are.

Yeah, well Martin Luther King was a chump. Dumb mother fucker kept thinking in the long term, and approaching his cause with caution because he knew system change was a complicated process. Only the genius progressives of today realize the far better solution of petty, short-term satisfaction and screaming that most of the time only hurts the people they're supposedly fighting for and never seems to affect the people they're supposedly fighting against. Why take time to study and understand the system you're trying to change when looting some poor black-owned business in the name of protecting poor black-owned businesses takes a lot less time and gets you free stuff?

I assume Holly replied "I think looting and robbing innocent people who had nothing to do with who pissed you off is always fucked" and Steph was laughed out of the room? I see this sort of bullshit argument a lot.

As we all know, the perfect counter to any argument is to ask 'But what about the other people being assholes?' and never actually attack the original argument.

"A Million Ways"? The OK Go song? I tried look it up and see if there was a band called that, but all I could find was the song. Google kept thinking I was looking up A Million Ways to Die in the West.

Even google knows that a mediocre Seth McFarlan movie is a better alternative.

Notice that Kiera doesn't even try to offer an explanation for why "person of color" is so much better than "coloured person" and is in fact offended by the suggestion that she ought to have one. This is because there is no reason, progressivm is just dominated by a mystic social constructivist cult that thinks if all terms describing oppression, hardship, misfortune, or even basic reality are replaced with ever more gramatically unwiedly subsitutes, they'll cease to exist. It's how we went from "homeless" to "unhoused" to "person experiencing houselessnes."

Kiera is the type of person who yells at you to educate yourself and then gets pissy because the only sources willing to educate you are the 'wrong' ones.

Remember that episode of Red Dwarf where there's two Rimmers, and they both hate each other?

Now I'm just imagining the Rimworld episode, but all the Rimmers are in blackface and doing african accents.

 

[IridiumDragon06]

Yes! I hate those things too, for much the same reasons! The only reason you think that kind of whataboutism is a winner is because you assume everyone's morality is as tribal and self-serving as yours!

More to the point, is there a lot of actual looting in response to sports victories? I'm not a criminal sociologist, and I'm just going by a survey of what I've seen on various internet vids, but my understanding is that the actual hard-code, e.g., English soccer hooligans of the day tended more towards property destruction than looting. Can we find videos of mobs of white people looting in comparable numbers to black people, for any reason?

I mean, I'm not going to dig into the level of better or worse of overturning and torching random cars parked on the road as breaking into and looting a random store; clearly both are misbehavior to be dealt with harshly by law enforcement. But I do wonder if there is a difference there.

I honestly find the origins of the "black people love fried chicken" thing interesting, and even a bit poignant.

Also, as an aside for the non-Yank members of the audience; it's useful to remember that black people are, despite their representation in our media and our cultural consciousness, a significant minority. There were a lot more poor white farmers than enslaved-then-poor black farmers in the South, and while there was also a great deal of black-specific crud during Reconstruction, a lot of things were universal, and being a farmer in an area that used to grow a cash crop and then had to deal with an encircling blockade during a civil war and Sherman and Sherman-a-likes burning shit was one of those things. You can note that there was (and is) enough interest in fried chicken in the American south to support multiple franchises (KFC, Popeyes, etc.), all of which come from a shared cultural point.

Imagine if someone in the last forty years wrote a YA book where a white kid who went to a majority-minority high school said they hoped they went to a really white college, because they found black or Hispanic kids distracting, and his girlfriend, the protagonist, agreed with him.

Well, it's like the book said, you should really read MLK's work, to know that he had a dream, that his children would one day be judged not on the content of their character, but the ashiness of their ankles.

Does anyone know what the hell that means, actually? A moment's googling showed me that it was a thing that got memed, but I'll be buggered if I could get what was actually being communicated, other than maybe some black people have dry skin around their feet, possibly?

But yeah, it's always helpful to read people in their own words, and see to what standards they hold themselves to, before you go through the effort of engaging with their accusations against you for your own bad behavior.

Also, how bullshit is it that SLAY has a Miyazaki cosmetic, but no Goku card? What kind of black video game is this?

Clearly Slavery is the reason that Kiera has no interest in DBZ. And equally-clearly, the only authentic black experience can only come from Kiera's heavily-curated Twitter feed. It is remarkable how even as the author acknowledges that other black people have other entirely-different experiences, she zeros in on her own as the only authentic ones.

 

[Post Reply]

allowing me to teleport at light speed

Which is it, teleportation or movement at the speed of light?

Mountains zoom past me. I smile, impressed at how good they look up close.

Ah, it's neither.

Also, this game has five-hundred thousand players. How are we supposed to believe no white people have heard of it? Hell, how do Keira and Cicada even check all these people are black?

It's simple, any white people who discover SLAY laugh themselves to death at its name. It's a foolproof plan!

She must be a professional martial artist in real life, with access to an entire gymnasium of space, because she can flip across the whole arena and roundhouse-kick her opponents clean out of the ring.

This is the strangest card game I've ever heard of.

When Reddit first launched, it was so secretive that Redditors in real life used to ask the highly conspicuous question “When does the narwhal bacon?” but I like our version better. It’s more covert. “Did you thaw the meat?” is a totally normal question to ask. “When does the narwhal bacon?” will make people ask, “WTF are you Internet kids up to?”

Imagine taking the deadest non-meme Reddit ever produced and slipping it into your YA black power pamphlet. I think this woman may actually be a troll.

“Zama has chosen the Gabby Douglas card and the Twist-Out card for a deadly combination. Very nice, but will it withstand PrestoBox’s selections, the Jimi Hendrix card and the Swerve card? We’ll find out in three! Two! One! And begin!”

I can't imagine anything duller than reading the in-universe color commentary for a Wakandayugioh battle. Especially as this author seems to have done her world building by repeatedly clicking Related Articles on Wikipedia.

Fun fact, the reason so many black women go for shaved heads is that, in many African cultures, hair is associated with animals, and thus a civilized person should have as little of it as possible. There's not really a joke there, I just like to provide more interesting context than the book does. Also, I assume manscaping is huge in those cultures.

Hair has very different connotations in the West thanks to some strange notions passed down to us from ancient cultures. A woman's long hair was regarded as a symbol of her sexuality or virility (and thus it needed to be covered if she was to remain modest) whereas for a man to have long uncut hair was either a sign of chastity or simply shameful. Wherever they came from, these concepts stuck around long enough to become embedded in both Christianity and Islam, although the Christian practice has faded away over the past century.

 

[White-Kettle Shufflepunk]

Today, we're not starting off with Kiera, but rather her dev-partner, Cicada. Don't get your hopes up, though. You've seen how Morris writes members of her own demographic, and what she thinks of people even slightly different from her. Can you imagine how she'd write someone from another country?

My name is Claire, and today I’m especially happy I live alone.

“Yes!” I whisper-scream at my desk in the corner of my little flat. “Yes, yes, yes!”

Zama, my favorite SLAYer, has won, and will go on to fight the victor of the Anubis vs. Spade showdown happening in the southernmost corner of the Desert region in fourteen hours.

I’ve seen Anubis duel before. He’s athletic, making strategic use of his environment—the guardrails, the stands, and even his opponents. In the duel I saw, using the Michael Johnson card, he sprinted toward his adversary—Orlea, a scorpion from the western part of the Desert region—did a handspring off her shoulders, grabbed her venomous tail, jammed it firmly into one of the sandy blocks that make up the arena wall, and landed squarely on his feet. It was sick!

Why the hell does the Michael Jackson card lets you sprint, and not moonwalk? The fuck is even the point? I'm really unclear about how the cards work. Do they just give you permission to perform certain physical actions in the came, which you still have to back up with your real-life atheletic prowess? That feels... deeply unsatisfying from a player perspective. "You've unlocked running! Oh, you have limited mobility due to medical issues, or lack the space? Well, guess this card is useless to you, then."

Also, I notice most of the African-American references in SLAY are to things that are pretty universially popular? I'm sure Michael Jackson, Prince, and Michael Jordan all occupy a special place in the hearts of black America, but they all have huge followings among pretty much every American demographic and beyond. And it's not like there isn't black art that's a bit obscure to wider audiences. I don't see many references to 227 or Moses, Man of the Mountain, is what I'm saying.

He might be into parkour in the real world. Give the boy a Battle card that has anything to do with agility, and it’s over for Spade.

I hope he's set up some padding, otherwise he's not getting his security deposit back with all the holes he's put in the walls. I get the impression that this story would make more sense if it was set in the nearish future, with full-immersion virtual reality. Think Better Than Life from Red Dwarf. Of course, if Kiera logged into Better Than Life, I suspect she'd instantly be fallen upon by roving Klansmen:

"Seize her! Her Black Girl Magic threatens us!"

Also, imagine making a game for African-Americans (let's be real, anyone not from America is just along for the ride) and making success it it mostly contigent on athleticism. It's like a literal southern colonel designed it.

But I’ve seen Spade battle too, and his greatest weapon—often underestimated—is his impeccable timing. He’s used cards most people throw away in game-changing moves, like the Anansi card, which gives you eight limbs and two enormous fangs that will paralyze the opponent for five seconds with each strike. Most players who are new to the Anansi card don’t know how to operate eight limbs with just two real live arms, but you don’t command them with your arms—you command them with your fingers, and the thumbs control the fangs. Maybe the player behind Spade is a world-famous pianist.

The only way this game could be less accessible is if you had to climb a staircase with a tollbooth up top to play it. Every card we've seen so far seems to require at least one of three things: excellent atheletic condition, an absurd amount of space and geomtry to work with, or being a virtuoso in some niche skill. Or in the case of the Hustle card, none of those things, and it just wins the game for you instantly.

But I’m not worried. Zama has the agility of a jungle cat, and she knows every card I’ve ever seen her dealt. She won’t give the finals away to either of these boys, especially with the howls of the Wolf Pack behind her.

I mean, you have given men quite an advantage with you and Kiera's odd decision to combine Magic: The Gathering with MMA. But, you know, Black Girl Magic.

“It’s a Zama victory! Zama wins! Zama wins!” I smile as the crowd howls to the stars in her name. Zama pulls back her wolf-head hood and exposes her gorgeous black locs speckled with gold jewelry. She raises her fists into the air and begins her victory walk around the perimeter of the ring. PrestoBox is kneeling in the center, face turned downward. I hope Presto doesn’t feel too bad. I looked up their stats before the match and realized it’s Presto’s very first tournament. To lose 2200−2000 in the semifinals against a renowned champion is a feat to be proud of!

Especially if you didn't use the "just straight up takes half your opponent's points" card.

I look back to Zama. Oh, she’s beautiful. Between her dreads, wrist bangles, abundant gold rings, and wolf pelt, I could walk the streets of Paris for miles and not find a look as striking as hers. I keep typing.

She's talking about a video-game avatar. I guess it's at least still technically a 3D girl?

“Zama will represent the Tundra region in the finals against the Desert champion. Both warriors will face off in the duel of the century on Saturday morning, eleven a.m. West Africa Time, so be sure to log on then. Until then, be conscious, and be well.”

I bet there's like, a few dozen West African players at best.

I immediately pull out my phone and text Emerald. Zama wins with the Hustle card!

I will never get over how shitty and unfair the Hustle card is.

I glance at the clock. It’s one thirty in the morning already. The match ran long, and my math final is in a little over six hours. Even though it’s a three-hour final, I know I’ll ace it. I’m not worried. My chief concern is getting back to my flat in time to prepare for Anubis vs. Spade by eight thirty tonight, since my last class ends at seven. I pick up a few almonds from the bowl in the corner of my desk that I keep handy for snacking, toss them into my mouth, and navigate to chat. I type in A-N-U-B-I-S.

Black Girl Magic is also a substitute for sleep and revision.

He must be one of the oldest SLAYers in the game. That’s the only way he could’ve gotten the name Anubis. Everyone wants that name. There’s also a BetrAnubis, whose name Emerald wanted to flag because she thought it was disrespectful, but I insisted we leave it. The name “Anubis” is not owned by any one man. My SLAY name was almost Nubia, but I chose Cicada instead because I didn’t want Anubis coming after me thinking I was flirting with him. Emerald said that’s going to happen anyway because my character wears a gown. She goes through the same thing, even when she’s wearing her emerald-green horns.

If having a name that comes from the same geographic region or wearing a dress constitutes "flirting" for Anubis, then I suspect he truly is God of the Dead for a lot of ladies. Is he one of those super-fundamentalist Muslims who thinks a four year old's eyes being visible is an incitement to lust?

I don’t know much about Emerald even though we met three years ago when the game started, but I know she’s braver than I am, in almost every sense.

A reminder that Kiera hasn't shown her beloved sister her life's work because they disagree about the word "Ebonics."

When people pop up with questionable usernames, she’s not afraid to let them know, kindly—unless they keep with the tomfoolery, and then she’s not afraid to bring down the ban hammer. My official title is “mod,” short for “moderator,” but I avoid conflict whenever I can. To each their own.

I'm guessing it's Kiera's job to administer the paper-bag test on new players.

My teakettle begins to whistle behind me, and I slip off my goggles and stand up to get it. My VR gloves are impressively insulating, and waterproof, so any splashes from the hot water don’t burn my hands. This kettle is getting a funny smell to it, no matter how long I leave the lemon water inside. I even went to Monoprix and bought a huge bottle of lemon juice and tried boiling it full potency, which didn’t do anything for the kettle smell, but it made my little flat smell fresh and clean. It beats the scent of lavender laundry detergent that lingers here no matter what candles I light.

How fucking careless and stupid is this woman that she needs her expensive VR gloves to protect her while making tea?

My neighbors have rented out their flat, since they’re in London through the weekend on a business trip, and the current occupants are clearly tourists. I’ve heard them through the walls speaking mostly American English with some broken French sprinkled in, the word bonjour appearing every other word. We Parisians don’t say hello to each other that often. They also behave like they’re keenly aware they’re vacationing in the city of love.

Sitting in your flat inwardly bitching about the tourists next door being a bit silly in private is very this book.

The woman was wearing a baby-pink tutu and a red bow with a blue blazer as if the only insight into French culture she’s ever had is from Madeline

Morris meanwhile did much more research. I mean, she's probably watched Amelie at least halfway through.

and last night they were having the most enthusiastic sex I’ve ever heard—on the balcony! Right outside in the open! The man walked past me in the lobby yesterday evening when I left to get a snack while on study break. He looked at me and nodded and smiled. No marveling, no strange looks, no asking me how I’m getting along in this heat—you know, since so many white Parisian natives assume I’m from Africa. No surprise at my fluent French as I greeted the doorman, since I was born here in Paris. The Americans assume I’m supposed to be here, and I like that.

Wouldn't a tourist who only knew Paris from pop-culture be less likely to realise black people have lived there for generations? Also, France may be warmer than say, England, but Africa isn't exactly known for its crackbone winters, so why would someone think an African would be bothered by Parisian heat? That just sounds like the kind of small-talk people would make with anyone on a hot day.

Emerald told me about a year ago that she’s American, but I figured it out well before that when she said once that she was eating Easy Cheese on saltines for a snack. I had to google what the hell “Easy Cheese” was, but once I did, I realized only an American stomach could survive digesting cheese from a spray can, and due to the time difference, I know she’s somewhere on the West Coast—I’m assuming Southern California, since everyone on the West Coast seems to live there. California must be lovely with the sun always shining, always something to do, and so many people. More importantly, so many Black people. I imagine it’s like a real-life SLAY world, where everyone has special powers. Los Angeles is full of so many stars and starlets, so many incredible people of color. I want to go there one day. I want to talk to them, to know what it’s like to be famous.

Okay, this book could really turn around if Claire travels to California, gets reverse Paris-syndrome, kidnaps Kiera to try and find the portal to SLAY, and it's up to Malcolm and Wyatt to track her down. Also, writing a French chick fantasising about America like it's Narnia is the most American thing you can do. The most French things you can do meanwhile are restore than overthrow the monarchy, riot, or embark on a long philosphical career to justify molesting South Sea Island children.

I look around my two-hundred-square-foot flat, at the pictures all over the wall behind the string of lights above my tiny mattress. I’m running out of wall space. My bald brown head is easy to find in all the photos, usually posing next to a friend who has come to visit for a couple of days, or fellow students at their graduation before they fly off somewhere exciting or home to their families. My university takes only two hundred students per year, and only 10 percent of those are native Parisians, leaving me here in Paris alone in the summer, or in Florence, Italy, with Mamma. Since she got sick, the amount of time I spend in Florence has slowly dwindled. More money for her treatment equals less money for my travel.

I'm suprised this isn't a springboard for a rant about American healthcare.

But I have one photo of us together—me and Mamma—on my desk in a little pink frame she bought me last time I was there with her. I stare at it now, with both of us holding so many shopping bags, they’re crowding the shot. I’m wearing a grin from ear to ear, with my thick brown hair falling in waves over my shoulders, back when I used to wear it long and straighten it. She has striking black doe eyes, thick eyebrows I’ve always been jealous of, and thick, wavy hair a deep chocolate brown—well, had thick wavy hair a deep chocolate brown. Last time I visited, it was duller, much thinner, and her eyebrows had faded to gray. I could call her later today when she might be awake, but that’s hard to gauge, since her sleep has been unpredictable lately. Dr. Ricci insists she’s sleeping so much because chemo takes a lot out of her body, but I suspect she’s sleeping so much because it’s taking a lot out of her mind.

Well, I instantly sympathise with Claire more than Kiera. Having actual problems will do that.

Emerald: Hey, tell me more about the duel. Did Presto have a fighting chance?

Oh, did they! I can’t type fast enough to keep up with my brain.

Me: Presto attacked with the Weave card in Round 2, RIGHT after Zama finished her Twist-Out power. Countering a natural hair card with a weave card? Petty AF. In round three, Zama used the Wobble card, which looks really funny when your opponent is wearing a cape. Presto just looked like a drunk guy at a toga party with that robe. Hey, why don’t we have a Bald card? Some of us are bald.

I smile and wait for her to reply, those little dots popping up on my screen. I wish she could’ve seen the Weave card in action. It’s a rare one that functions just like the Twist-Out card in that you can wield long tendrils of hair, but it’s slightly less versatile—yes, that’s intentional—and deals twice as much damage—not intentional, but accurate in many cases.

What the fuck is a Wobble? Why does this book explain the most basic, banal shit and not any of the inside-baseball? Also, black hair is sacred, but not nearly so powerful as when enhanced by hair sold by desperate Burmese chicks.

Emerald: We could totally have a Bald card! Nobody rocks bald like we do . Wanna write one up for the next tournament?

I mean, the skinheads pull it off alright.

Me: What would a Bald card even look like? Would a brown bowling ball roll out of the wall and attack?

Emerald: WTF no. Idk, but I know you’ll come up with something good. Anyway, back to the fight. What else happened? Tell me everything.

Please don't. Also, clearly you should headbutt your opponents.

So I recount the rest of the fight—every move. Especially PrestoBox’s luck at being dealt an Innovation card. I designed that one. Since innovation takes whatever you have and makes it better, the Innovation card boosts whatever card you use with it by 20 percent. PrestoBox used it with a Shout card, which Emerald had to explain is something done in Southern churches in America. Anyway, the Shout card rattles the whole arena, shaking 25 percent of the opponent’s points right off the board. It was a devastating blow, but Zama stole them right back with the Hustle card and won the day. Now she’ll play either Anubis or Spade in the finals.

Shouting, something only southern churches do.

Me: Who do you think will win the Desert?
Anubis is from Kansas City, and Spade is from somewhere here in France. I know this because they both put their location in their profile, which Emerald and I urge players not to do every chance we get. For players’ protection, we encourage everyone to keep themselves anonymous.
Emerald: Definitely Anubis. Have you seen the coin on that man? Over a million.

Ah, so SLAY is pay-to-win, got it. This game is like it was designed to drive Jim Sterling insane. More insane.

I blink in surprise. Over a million? I put my phone down, turn back to my computer, and click on Anubis’s name in my “most recent” list. Sure enough, his SLAY coin count reads 1,305,200. That equates to months and months and months of game play, hundreds of duels won, and thousands of items sold. Curious, I check his inventory and realize he’s full up on armor. He must be forging it in the Desert somewhere and selling it to players in other regions. It makes sense. Sand lends itself to crafting, since it can easily be turned into metal, and the Desert provides few other resources on which characters could thrive. Harsh living conditions and abundant sand mean high barriers to entry, and low-cost manufacturing.

I will admit, it's hard for me to get a bead on what SLAY is actually like to play? It seems to mostly be about the PVP card-game shit, but it's also a full scale open world MMORPG thing? Built and maintained by only two devs? Are there quests? Because I really want to see what kind of plots these two come up with? Incursions by the Yakubians? Also, you use sand to make glass, not metal!

Either that, or he’s got real-life friends who play, and they’ve all pooled their money into one character to boost their economy of scale. In-game merchants will usually offer deals on large numbers of items sold at a time, tossing in extra items for free. Carrying a lot of SLAY coins at once can also boost your in-game influence. People are a lot more likely to trade items with or do favors for a character who has a lot of SLAY coins to give away, or use to buy them things. I’ve seen that happen too.

This kind of elaborate economy also feels weird for what's obstensibly an amatuer passion project enjoyed by a cult audience.

She’s right. Players can learn the cards one of three ways: using them in duels and learning as they go, trading cards with other players for resources and outfits, or buying access to the cards outright with SLAY coins. It’s why Emerald and I rarely battle anyone but each other. Since we have editing rights to all the cards, it wouldn’t be fair to other players. Most of them haven’t even seen all the cards, since they can cost anywhere from two hundred coins, for something common like the Innovation card, to half a million coins for something rare like the J’s card—the one with the big picture of glistening white shoes with gold wings on the sides. Basketball shoes have a cultlike following in the US, so Emerald insisted the card should have a similar following, and it’s a useful card too, boosting jumping ability by 70 percent.

It must be really hard to figure out how real-life movements translate into SLAY.

Me: But then why is Anubis in the tournament? What’s he playing for?

The prize is 100,000 coins. What in the world does Anubis, Sir Rich AF, need another 100,000 coins for?

Emerald: Maybe he’s just greedy? Maybe he’s trying to overthrow me because he doesn’t know how programming works? No idea. Can’t sleep. Wanna battle?

Maybe he just likes the game? For fuck's sake, ladies, have some faith in your product!

My heart sinks as I look at the clock again. Merde, it’s already seven o’clock! Did I really study that long? I only have thirty minutes to make the forty-minute journey to class!

Me: Can’t, sorry. I have to get to class. But I’ll be back online in time to officiate the desert semifinals tonight, promise!

Claire later flunked out of class.

I hope she’s not too disappointed. There’s nothing I love more than battling Emerald, when I have the time. But I don’t even have time to wait for a reply. I put my computer to sleep, slip my denim vest with the cutoff sleeves off my chair, and slide into it. I grab my backpack and I’m out the door, down the stairs, and running through the streets of Paris to get to the train at Gare d’Austerlitz. I live in the thirteenth arrondissement, and my university is in the fifth arrondissement, so I have to sprint, with my schoolbag bouncing against my hip the whole way to the train, to make it on time. I can’t get Anubis out of my mind. I’ve never seen a balance that high. Maybe we need to start offering more purchase incentives? Or increase the price of upgrades?

So, what do we think is Anubus' deal? Hacking? An underground market in coins? Secret whitey infiltrator?

It feels strange to wield that kind of power from the comfort of my flat—to be able to change the economics of an entire virtual community with a little coding. Emerald addresses every SLAYer as a king or a queen. “We’re all royalty,” she always says. I guess if everyone in the game is royalty, that makes me and Emerald kind of like goddesses.

I suppose it was foolish of me to think there was ever any escape from Zoey Redbird.

I smile at that idea as I dart onto the train and spot an empty seat next to a slender older woman with a gorgeous red Louis Vuitton handbag. She doesn’t see me. She’s immersed in a book called Amour et Fantaisie with a gold-imprinted cover. I look around to see if anyone else is going to take the seat, and when I decide to take it for myself and let go of the pole, she looks up at me. At first I think she’s looking over her glasses to see me better—they might be reading glasses after all. But then she takes that gorgeous Louis Vuitton, slides it on over into the empty seat, stares up at me again, and turns her attention back to the book.

I turn around so she can’t see my face flushing, hoping to keep up the illusion that I didn’t want the seat anyway, that I was just getting situated and now I’m on my phone not caring. The train lurches forward, and the inertia throws me backward against a middle-aged man in a suit, and I hurriedly apologize, “Excusez-moi. Vous allez bien?” and he looks up at me and nods with a smile and a courteous “Pas de problème! Votre français est parfait. D’où êtes-vous?” which translates literally to “I’m fine. Your French is perfect. Where are you from?” or, more loosely, “Where are you from, since obviously you’re not native to Paris?”

So, during the last round of regularly scheduled French rioting, people on Twitter were passing around this video of some well-meaning teachers trying to convince a class of Algerian kids that they were in fact, French. The kids weren't having it. They didn't feel like part of French society, nor did they have much desire to be French. Keep in mind, they were all born there, as were many of their parents. Now, no group of humans are a monolith. I'm sure there are plenty of non-white people in France who identify as French rather than whatever land their parents or grandparents hail from, and I don't think it's my place to tell them they're wrong. Still, I can't help but think the author is transposing an American conception of race and nationality onto someone who might well not view these things the same way. On a personal note, despite never having left the country, fellow Australians have sometimes mistaken my accent for English. Somehow, I've never felt particularly wounded by this. Actually, you ever notice that when you ask white people where they're "really" from, they usually launch into a cheerful recitation of all the different European countries their ancestors are from, but for "people of colour" it's a stab in the gut?

My cheeks are burning, and my eyes are getting cloudy, and I wonder if everyone in America is as nice as that couple in my neighbor’s flat.
Sometimes I think I relate more to tourists than native Parisians.
“La putain de toundra,” I say.
The fucking Tundra.

If you feel you can react to a polite question, accompanied by a sincere compliment, no less, with vulgarity, you're not oppressed, you're just an arsehole.

 

[Post Reply]

I will admit, it's hard for me to get a bead on what SLAY is actually like to play? It seems to mostly be about the PVP card-game shit, but it's also a full scale open world MMORPG thing? Built and maintained by only two devs? Are there quests?

It's Skyrim, with cards! Seriously I don't think the author has ever played a video game. Nor met another black person in real life.

So, what do we think is Anubus' deal? Hacking? An underground market in coins? Secret whitey infiltrator?

It's obviously Malcolm, who is determined to show what's-her-name that video games are a waste of time by crashing her game's economy, with no survivors.

 

[Sister Miriam Godwinson]

It's Skyrim, with cards! Seriously I don't think the author has ever played a video game. Nor met another black person in real life.

It's obviously Malcolm, who is determined to show what's-her-name that video games are a waste of time by crashing her game's economy, with no survivors.

It has a netcode written by a highschooler. The players must be duping gold and items out of the ass, and she still hasn't addressed these 641 reports. Guess how many of these are "there is a suspicious jackal furry trying to sell unique endgame loot he could't have possibly obtained by playing"?

Curious, I check his inventory and realize he’s full up on armor. He must be forging it in the Desert somewhere and selling it to players in other regions.

You are a developer, you dumb bint. Yoi don't have to guess, just check the logs.