Delay of Game

Starting off strong by not posting on the 16th when I meant to do so.

Couldn't be helped; I had to go to the Holy City, Chicago, to do business nonsense for like 10 days.

Anyway, I'm back, I'm as sick as a dog, and I'm ready to blog.

More like, Generation W, Amirite?

For "Weeb." Are we Still Calling People Weebs? Is that a problematic slur? I'll ask Jeffrey, who has the critical, probing mind to put the matter to rest.

A high-grade model of a battle mech sits in a place of high honour beside his light-up keyboard; we built it together.

Are all zoomers weebs? If everyone is weeb, then is weeb bro? Questions like these are unanswerable perhaps.

And that lack of addressability, that homelessness of concept as it were, can only be healed by one of two salves:

philosophy: dumb, frequent handmaiden to totalitarian movements, generally reviled.
sports: smart, takes seriously the invidual's relationship to the collective, loved by all.

Unfortunately, a crisp packet catches me underfoot. I slip and tumble back onto Nicholas’ bed

See, and what did I say, Nicky? What did I fucking say, Nicky? As it's World Cup time, this is what we in the biz call an "own goal." Katherine is your teammate, practically your battle-sister. Get your head in the game and clean your damn room.

I love the shitposting tone that Katherine's inner monologue takes. The fastidiousness of her maintenance of a gender-facade, versus the reported disgustingness of her domestic hygiene. It's hilarious coming from someone who is a certified grub per the prologue.

I persist in both my heterosexuality and cisgenderhood.

So, let's circle up real quick. I find myself in a conundrum of language. Perhaps even of gender.

Because, well, I have it on very good authority that this is a book about cis straight men. And RCBG is a men's sport, as I understand the, frankly underspecified to date, rules of play.

And yet.

It feels like, maybe, possibly, it would be better to use Katherine's non-struck-out name. Which is what I have been doing, in fact.

See this is actually kind of a philosophical question. Which, see above, is dumb.

Da Boyz

Is Katherine still da boyz? To quote Girls, "who are the ladies?" Is Katherine "the ladies?" Unclear. Ostensibly, since she's persisting in both her heterosexuality and cisgenderhood, she's a cisgender heterosexual man.

So, there, that works. Done and dusted. I will probably keep using she-series pronouns for Katherine until I gather more evidence to the contrary.

Just to be safe.

Title IX Despair League Funding Note

By asserting that I am not queer in any way, shape, manner, or form, I can ensure Nicholas does not feel the need to funda‐ mentally shift his understanding of me.

So was the hoodie not salmon either? This is a house of lies.

Basketball

Ranked Competitive Breast Growth. It is an underground sport for cis men, open to anyone who lives in this city and hosted on a Discord server. A race to grow the biggest breasts over the span of three years.

I write this from a hotel on a work trip as the Knicks just won, and I'm struck by the parallels between the invention of basketball and the invention of RCBG.

Now, we all know that basketball was invented in Springfield Massachussets by James Naismith in 1891 to give athletes something to do when it was shitty outside. Which in Springfield Massachussets is "mostly," hence the game's broad success.

So, first, inventing a sport is always going to fall in the tradition of sport. RCBG is no different.

Second, naturally, these athletes need to grow their breasts while cooped up, very similarly to how the original basketballers needed to stay conditioned while cooped up. And, Britishness is the number one way to be cooped up.

This is all British right? I mean, "crisps?"

The parallels really are well-drawn, which makes sense from a sports novel. Sport is, at its best, a kind of body art, and art will always escape the bounds of genre and convention.

One cannot escape the all seeing, all consuming, power of Ball.

Kyle

Kyle navigates a phone call with his mother about his effianced, Rupali.

Undeterred. Like a puppy that you just can’t kick enough times.

I like Kyle. This guy's got killer instinct and he's a team player. A rare combination.

Unless I can actually crack into the damn RCBG server’s leaderboard.

And here I confess my poor reading comprehension skills. I was confused before RCBG came up again.

I thought it was a made-up excuse Katherine had invented to get Nicky off her trail, having somehow gone through the gauntlet of medical access another way (armed robbery perhaps?)

And that the farce would be her having to fake its existence until it became a real thing, or something. So glad it came up again, or there'd be a whole paragraph in here about something that did not happen.

Hazards of writing as a person experiencing dumbness.

Anyway, phone calls with parents. Woof. During a period of financial dependence on them. Simply the worst, even without the additional stress at work here.

Jeff

I find it buried under a pile of athleisure, stuffed under black spandex garments to better blend into the disorganised mass.

Dear Christ, why in the name of God do none of these people fold their fucking laundry? Is it a regional affectation?

Kyle, I want you to know that I have absolutely nothing against your kind.

Jesus Christ, act like you've been anywhere before.

[T]he least offensive term is “non-white”, I think?

That's the important thing here, for sure, yeah. Gotta have the wokest Mandingo dynamic in your mind or else you might accidentally be a real piece of shit. I'm changing my mind Jeffrey must be protected and nurtured or he might simply pop like a little bubble.

It also takes it up a notch or twenty that Jeff's own interior monolog consciously rake-steps on race. The mixture of empathy-for and cartoonishness-of these characters so far is just, very good. This book is hilarious as of this early date, but still has, you know, the possibility of emotional stakes.

Waver Wire

Out

In

Katherine
Rupali
Jeff

Current Roster

Kyle: Tense.
Katherine: A sort of gremlin-person awash in Monster energy cans and who would rather not eat than do the dishes.
Rupali: GSA member, organizing a protest against an anti-trans speaker
Jeffrey: Blindingly annoying, posessed of at least one shame kink, will need to be deprogrammed like a child soldier in Beasts of No Nation. Spoilers for Beasts of No Nation I guess.
Nicky: Undergoing what is presumably one of the most surreal experiences possible in a friendship.

ESPORTZ

Ranked Competitive Breast Growth