Tear It Up

Back in April of 2003, I wrote a post discussing my disdain for fanfiction - particularly that of the DDR variety. I think most of the links in the post are dead, but the point remains the same: fanfiction for video games, particular video games without a plot, is a crime against humanity.

Don't get me wrong, I'm passionate about games. Twenty years of gaming gets you a lot of addictions and obsessions. I've played some games long enough to temporarily ruin my vision, taken mutli-hour car trips with people I barely know to play games in arcades, and written way more PHP to handle game accounting than anyone should have to in the course of their life.

But there's a line for me. Somewhere past cosplaying at conventions is a breed of gamer who takes things way, way, way too far.

Today, Aaron Ramsey discovered - quite accidently - the Beatmania IIDX Platinum Livejournal community. I should, in all fairness, know by now not to click links titled "SOMEBODY PLEASE TELL ME WHAT THE HELL THIS IS ABOUT".

If there's any game I'm obsessed with, it's certainly Beatmania IIDX; anyone who's been reading here for longer than a month has been subjected to the regular tangent about it. I am not going to go into details to describe the percentage of my gaming attention this game occupies. That said, this community scares the living shit out of me.

IIDX_Platinum is a role-playing group. This means each and every person in the community plays the role of one of the IIDX "characters". Let's stop right here, for the benefit of those people that don't play: The characters in IIDX are largely relegated to screens that show your scores. They only occasionally appear in videos. They have very minor back-story associated with them, which is then obsessively filled in by people who think it's worth filling in.

To base an entire perpetual role playing game off of characters that don't have any characterization is...to make the obvious joke, just disturbed, guys. This is even acknowledged in the group rules:

I've done all the research I could do and there isn't a website that describes all the character's personality.

There are other sections in the rules that are equally troubling, like the full acknowledgement that there may be yaoi and yuri:

Keep an open mind. This community/rp group is run by yaoi fans... and we do allow yaoi, yuri, and het in this RP. Anything lemony, please warn us in advance.

Some people may find this hard to believe, but Beatmania IIDX is a fun game even if you don't pretend the characters on the results screens are having homosexual relations with each other. I personally don't think it adds anything to the gaming experience - but maybe that's just me.

I don't mean to go on a complete snark binge here, so let me get to the heart of the matter, which is based largely in this line in the group description:

Forgive us for being uncreative (or maybe being lazy) at the time, but this role-play has no set definite plot or anything like that. I mean, our boys and girls are DJ's. Still, that's not to say that it's all they ever do. They are human after all, and go through the same things that we all do. Happy times, fun times, depression, frustration, anger, emo, angst, etc.

If these characters truly "go through the same things that we all do", what's the motivation here to write about someone else's (fictional) life ? Why would you want to pretend to have issues, especially those that aren't your own? Is there really an emotional rush for pretending to be in love with someone else who doesn't exist? Since all of these love stories seem to end in heartbreak, why would anyone want to pretend to go through that?

Don't misread that as saying there isn't something to be said for going through all of these things yourself; there's a lot to be learned from falling into and out of love, from releasing your frustrations and having your friends be there for you in your darkest days. But you need to go through these life experiences as yourself, not as a fictional DJ (or any other character from one of the thousands of roleplaying groups online).

In total, it strikes me as rather tragic that there are so many people out there who are content to churn out pages upon pages of fictional phone conversations, AIM chats, and trips with fictional friends rather than try doing any of these things as themselves.

Life is too short to spend it writing a story for someone else's life.