It’s Dangerous to Go Alone: A Corny Tutorial
If you’ve managed to read this far: achievement unlocked! I know there are emails in your inbox, dishes to be done, appointments to schedule, friends to text because you haven’t texted them in weeks. Or, perhaps, you’re wondering how to stomach The Depths in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, or why you want to spend the five-to-nine after your nine-to-five paying rent to a racoon in Animal Crossing: New Horizons. In this attention economy, it all cries out, itches a corner of your mind. But here we are, for maybe a moment longer, staring at some echo of the same screen.
I’d like to believe reading is a conversation between writer and audience. However mimetic, idiosyncratic, facsimilistic, pastiche-istic, masochistic, synesthetic, yadda, yadda, it’s a miracle, a privilege even, that humans can mangle each other’s inner worlds through these very letter-symbol-thingies we call words; that, however many quarters we cram into this vending machine called “reading,” it dispenses something into our brains.
So, yeah. Pause at any time. Bookmark your place with receipt paper or spit. Step away, refresh the page, return to a previous section. I don’t know if you can save scum here but take a crack at that. Or: simply move on if you prefer.
You already have your sword, I suppose. And you’re not alone, nor is your time already spent. [1] This living thing is (allegedly) an open world adventure.
To proceed with this text as designed, click “return to map.”
(Also, sorry, not sorry: the video game verbiage only gets worse from here.)