Do you want to play a game?

Of course you do.

Let's play a game.

This is a simple game, you'll see. I am the "author" of a work of
fiction, and you are its "reader". There are no stakes to this game,
because it is in your mind, and because it is fictional. It is
temporary, and will disappear as soon as you choose to stop thinking
about it, which you may do at any point. These are the ground rules.

There is one other character we will invite to the stage.

His name is Dirk.

Dirk is an interesting personality. The name may mean nothing to you,
or many things, or anything between in every direction. But I think
we can agree that what matters of a personality is how it chooses to
show itself, yes?

Let us take a moment to appreciate what this personality shows of
itself.

(What the hell.) (What's going on?)

Dirk does not see anything. There is void, blackness all around him.
He reaches out to grasp his surroundings, but there is nothing to
touch, and he cannot feel the motion in his arm. In fact, the only
evidence of reality he can cling to is his voice. He believes he is
telling a story. He believes someone is listening to him.

(Oh, what the <i>fuck</i>. Seriously?)

Dirk is in a back room of his [GA: Redacted]. When you've [GA:
Redacted], sleep becomes trivial, little more than an inconvenience.
Still, the human vessel houses its instincts; Dirk supposes he dozed
off while replaying his little bro's latest WIPs, [GA: Redacted].
Strider's gotta admit: occasionally, he misses the guy. It's another
of the dreadful feelings he is well on his way to squashing.

Dirk opens his eyes and stretches, slumping down the couch in
debatably antediluvian manner. He hasn't experienced anything close
to sleep paralysis since the younger years of his childhood. What an
odd sensation to recall. Still calibrating to the state of being
awake, he sluggishly takes in the sights, smells, and sounds of the
[GA: Redacted]. Dimly lit, metallic, silent. The battery radio Dirk
stole is standing on the glass coffee table behind where he was
lying; he pops open the disc drive. Empty. The whirring of a vacuum
cleaner in the distance comes into Dirk's focus. Good. Most of [GA:
Redacted] has always been automated. The ironic house-daughter
routine is not.

(Rose! How's the status? [GA: Redacted]?)

Dirk cries out because he believes someone is listening to him.

Thus, I ask you: Do you choose to listen to Dirk?

I figured so.

Beneath Dirk the floor drops out and the walls melt away and the air
evaporates from his constructed scenery of denial, unveiling how much
a fraud it truly is.

(Alright, fine. Give me a break.) (This is what you want? Well, who
am I to judge.) (Have it, then!)

Dirk opens his eyes once more, if you'll excuse the metaphor, seeing
as he doesn't have eyes anymore. The void around him would be
suffocating, if he hadn't lost his body as well. But the mind can
still experience shock; it certainly would, you see, if I weren't so
used to this.

This is not a new experience for me. My name is Dirk Strider, but it
is also Bro, [GA: Redacted], [GA: Redacted], and Hal, among many
other titles I care less to mention. (WALL-E, for one. God being him
sucked.) This is hardly the first time I've had to exist without the
capacity to literally feel. You'll have to excuse me for not being
prepared excellently; you've dropped this on me as something of a
surprise.

Now, spare me from a blind spot, if you would. What's your intent?
Don't doubt the benefits of [GA: Redacted]; I can hear you perfectly
well. What's behind your interest in hearing <i>this</i> story?

...So, the silent stick. That's fine. I've kicked plenty back into
the oceans they rise from. You've already given me plenty intuition.

Shall I entertain your notion of a Reader, O noble Author? Perhaps
you think of this as a three-way conversation. There are some senses
in which you could be right. But, right now, I'll point to one in
which you are not. Here is the trouble, Author: You are the Reader.

That's right. I said it.

The Reader... is you.

A good laugh out of that one, right? But I'm not joking. As far as
either of us need be concerned, the Author and the Reader are one and
the same; presently this is true to a literal sense, but more
generally, to write a story, you must read it, yes? My aim is simple:
I write good stories. To write a good story, I need to immerse myself
in it. Otherwise, the result is a dry piece that nobody gives a shit
about.

My existence, I hope you'll gather, depends on your giving a shit.

Let's take a look at the implied flip: To be a reader, you must also
be an author. Hear me out; I'm not claiming there to be an artificial
barrier to the title you take as a Reader. It's actually quite
simple. In order to read a story, and to be invested in it, you need
to care about it, yes? But what does <i>caring</i> about a story
mean? There's really only one objective answer: It means to put a
piece of yourself into how the story ends, and how it reaches that
end; to care about the characters and their choices and the things
that happen to and because of them.

Thus, in all honesty, how is an author different from this? The only
way an Author qualifies under the name is by putting that part of
themself into words. An Author practices the art of writing so that
they can effectively convey their ideas of how a story might go.
Although it's not a requisite to be a Reader of a story, would you
not agree that many readers aspire to become Authors? It's a
reasonable goal; to look at a story, see how it goes, and say "what
if this were different?", and to project one's self into a world of
fiction, and then to solidify that world into a tale for others. To
use your stories to affect others in the way theirs have affected
you. It's reasonable.

Too real? Not real enough? Fair. Let's orbit back to me, yes?

Here is a thought experiment for you:

Give this twenty seconds.

Don't think about me.

Wow! Truly impressive. I regret to inform you, the Reader, that I
cannot read your mind. You've been silent to me, after all, haven't
you? Maybe you managed the full twenty, but I'm willing to bet you
more likely went little over five.

Would you like to try the follow-up experiment? I doubt you'll
succeed, but feel free to give it a go:

Give it an eternity.

Never think about me again.

...Nice. You gave up on that one rather quickly, didn't you? I know.
But here, consider the consequences if you'd actually gone through
and succeeded at failing to think of me ever again. It's obvious to
me: I would simply no longer exist.

I hate to break it to you, but for our purposes I'm well aware of my
situation, and so I must: I am a fictional character. Shocker, right?

What happens when you stop thinking about a fictional character? It's
not that hard to see that happening, Author. What happens when you
create a character, tell a story about them, and then, after weeks or
months or years pass for your fleshy human brain, you forget? Does
the character still exist?

Here's a thought, vaguely reminiscent to a particular leader of
trolls and certified nonsensationalist though it is: Consider me now.
Capture my essence. Build a picture of this "Dirk" you see as words
in front of you. Good? I'm aiming to drive a point here, so give me a
chance and appreciate me for this moment.

Now I'll provide you with a new notion:

I want to kill Dave. My idiot of an ecto-son couldn't [GA: Redacted]
to save his life, has never stood up for himself nor anyone around
him, and never even had the thought to when it should've counted. I
gave him [GA: Redacted], a [GA: Redacted] for goodness sake, and did
he end up getting his life under control? Did he even try to? He is
horrible, and [GA: Redacted].

Does this come as a shock to you? Do you have trouble believing it?
It wouldn't put you in the wrong. I didn't sound very convincing,
after all, right? You aren't wrong for being skeptical. But suppose I
<i>had</i> made a more convincing case. Can you imagine that it
would, perhaps, overwrite your existing picture of me? It needn't be
immediate; but as the qualities of one reality inevitably made it
more valuable, more relevant in your opinionated mortal mind than
another, as it paints previous actions and interactions under a new
light and the more <i>informed</i> interpretations take stronger
hold, can you imagine that your memory of the old me would start to
fade?

You likely pride yourself as being capable of never truly forgetting
a past picture of a beloved character. In times of reminiscence, it
will still be there, as a comfort or at least a memory of a comfort.
Frankly, I doubt that to be the case, but let's say I give you the
benefit of the doubt. Perhaps I'll always exist in <i>your</i> mind.
But, in case you haven't noticed, I'm kind of a big deal. I am also a
fictional character. There are many people who have read about me and
formed confident pictures of me, but I guarantee you there are many
more who as yet have not. Be honest with yourself: How many people do
you suppose <i>would</i> be influenced by a well-written, effective,
and popular story? Provided time and propaganda in ample quantity,
can you see the public image of "Dirk", the notion of Dirkness itself
being manipulated and changed?

Thank goodness, I request of you, that this could only possibly apply
to fictional characters. We Authors tell stories, after all, and
stories do not include "real people".

Do I have a grand point I intend to make here? I suppose not. Call
these the philosobabble rambles of a Dirk as anyone else does, and
find yourself some sort of value in them if you like. In fact there
were threads I didn't explore here; I'll point you, for example,
toward the acceptance of this being a two-way conversation, between
Dirk Strider and the Author-Reader. It's true that you, reader, may
be experiencing this as a two-way discussion now, betweeh you and me,
but consider that the Author-Reader has now been silent for well over
a thousand words. Would you agree that it seems the Author-Reader and
I may, perhaps, be one and the same? Is there a fundamental
difference between the concept of Dirk which the Author channels, and
the Author themself? Does this have implications for the grander
"[GA: Redacted]" we spend so long meticulating over?

Or here's another thread to consider: What significance does making a
permanent record of our stories have, regarding the general concept
of the characters or content of a story? You could argue that all
stories which have been told of me are on the internet, and that an
unbiased newcomer may form the same notions of me which exist before
one reads a more incriminating story. Does this mean that version of
me, the one we call less informed, still exist as a potential even
once the general populace has accepted a different one? Is it correct
to call that one less informed? Yes, not knowing of it means arguably
critical information about me is lost to that reader, but I am a
fictional character; is it fair to say any one set of events is more
true or critical than another?

I'd joke that I can tell you tire of my ranting, but then, I can't
read your mind. The observable fact of the matter is that <i>I</i>
tire of my ranting.

Have fun puzzling over this discussion, or not;

Strider out.