Wow! Fate brought you here. Kinda wild when you don’t really think about it too much, right? Anyway, here is a random episode of UnQuesting Fire for your viewing pleasure:
[wpb-random-posts]Yo, WTF is UQF?
Welcome to the unquest, folks: let’s unbake this bread, baby!
It might be a bit confusing at first, but don’t worry – it will probably reach “pretty confusing” levels by the end. Just kidding, I hope…
Ok, so this project (idk I’m just gonna call it a show, seems good enough a word to me *shrug emoji*); this show will consist purely of screenshots from Final Fantasy games taken from my phone and then woven together into a coherent story (semi-somewhat coherent maybe?). Or three basic story lines, anyway, which will be unrelated when convenient and related when that’s what works at the time. Seriously, more than anything else this is something I am doing for fun – so that’s the major criteria for the choices that I end up making for it. Don’t worry though, for people who are simply clamoring for my serious opinions about life, the universe, and everything else that seems to be falling apart these days then they will get plenty of opportunities in the Beautiful & the Doomed column.
But yeah, UnQuesting Fire (UQF) is just a fan of the franchise having fun with it – and honestly anyone who is a fan of FF knows very well that despite any of the serious themes that these games do indeed deal with in often very poignant and accessible ways, there always seem to be irreverent characters, jokes, and gags that allow the game not to take itself too seriously right alongside the more serious content.
Similarly, even when I’m talking about serious issues in UQF – like the actual state of the actual world that we all actually live in and are all watching fall apart before our very eyes, as well as my own personal struggles trying to figure out a way to navigate that world while balancing not hiding my head in the sand and not being overwhelmed by despair. For real, shit is HEAVY these days, and a little gallows humor definitely ain’t the worst way I’ve seen people handling the stop-motion apocalypse. (tbf it’s not even my own worst coping mechanism)
Whence the Name?
So, the name: UnQuesting Fire – as many of you surely are thinking right now, many cultures have a myth of some slick asshole stealing fire from the gods or whathaveyou in order to jumpstart human technology and the march toward “civilization”. Strangely enough, I was thinking the same thing. So, “unquesting fire” = undoing that bit of thievery and all of its resulting consequences (ie technology). No big deal.
*caveat*: I am not actually against technology. I’m actually a pretty big fan of technology as a thing, but I do have a huge fucking problem with many of the actual technologies that people have actually come up with, along with what it took to arrive at them in a shit-ton of instances. (btw sorry for inundating you with the word “actually”, but there is a reason. I cannot stress enough that I am not talking about hypothetical, theoretical, or metaphorical things here, but what really exists and what is actually killing our actual world. Sorry, but it will happen again) Anyway, my point is that I am against the path that many of our technologies took to become what they are today. Couple of reasons: (a) they broke the fucking world – our paradise planet, which, from where I’m sittin, is more than enough reason to reassess your feelings about a lot of the “improvements” that “technology” has made in your life. Seriously, everyone should do this. (b) The path that many technologies have followed (don’t ever think that there was only ever one path, too, “technology” is such a broad category that covers pretty much every single part of human life, on both individual and collective levels – ain’t none of that shit uniform) were steered/pushed/determined by literally the worst people humanity has ever produced – martial imperialists (European nation-states and their colonial offspring) and economic imperialists (capitalists). They’re often the same people, or at least from the same families and social circles.
You all know who these people are. Some of them you’ve learned to hate and despise as villains of history while others you’ve been taught to love and revere as heroes. The reality is, is that they are all generally pieces of shit whose memories should be flushed and their legacies erased from history. Here’s the thing – genocide and ecocide for your own “gain” is a pretty low bar for basic human decency; if someone devoted their life to either or, as is often the case, both, then they are an irredeemable piece of shit. Please don’t defend them, no matter how “nice” or otherwise heroic you believe them to be. And if you still feel the need to defend the worst humanity has to offer, just don’t do it to me. Thanks.
End of caveat, back to UQF: I am likewise obviously well aware that we cannot “unmake” the path that any technology or society took. But – and this is really super important – we, as a species, can at any point choose to direct technological paths in whatever direction we actually want. We can unmake any technologies we want to simply by creating new technologies that make the shitty versions obsolete, simple as. If we dared to be so bold, we could even choose to call things “progress” only if the technological advances move down the path of making the world better for humanity and/or all the other amazing Life on this planet, instead of what makes some of the worst people who have ever existed the most profit. Honestly, before you call anything progress or progressive, (technological, political, social, economic, cultural, etc, etc, etc) you should always ask “progress towards what exactly?” and if you don’t like the answer then you should stop calling trinkets and baby-steps down dead ends “progress”. It’s gauche – just sayin.
UQF: Dimmer Than Darkness
So anyway, my plan as of right now is to produce three different “shows” under the UnQuesting Fire banner. First, will be the “central” story called “Dimmer Than Darkness”, which will consist of an ongoing journey to “unquest” fire. Despite the random names of fake places or fantastical creatures or magic or anything else – I am always talking about our world. The one we live in. The empires that exist today in political and corporate forms; the monsters wrapped in human skin that give empires their teeth and claws; and the very real atrocities, calamities, and tragedies that happen more and more frequently with greater and greater severity as our stop-motion apocalypse unfolds a few more frames at a time. Anyway, of the three this will be the one that has an ongoing narrative tying the whole thing together – the other two most likely will have either self-contained episodes or short serial arcs (idk, I’m not sure yet, but most likely a mixture of both, and like most other shows a “to be continued…” and/or a “part 1/2/3/etc” should be enough to figure that much out at least – the other kinds of confusions around the show might be a bit more tenacious though, who knows?)
Btw, if you ask, “What´s Dimmer Than Darkness?” The answer is both “a weird internet show” and “our fuckin timeline”. Idk, that’s fun to me…
UQF: The Further Adventures of Stoner and the Veev!
Second will be the “Further Adventures of Stoner & the Veev”, which will center around two characters (wonder if you can guess which two?) as they attempt to put up a wee buffer between themselves and all the tragic everything that goes along with questing to save the world. Seems that if the world needs savin then there’s most likely some tragic shit happening – and the level that our world is at according to the In-Need-Of-Saving-O-Meter is “Seriously? Is that a serious question? Wow…Seriously?”, so… Anyway, as should be clear by the title, there is pretty much no subtlety as to the nature of the buffer in question. Also keep in mind, it’s just supposed to be fun (and hopefully funny – but I’ve been told there’s no accounting for taste, so we’ll just have to see lol), so don’t take it more seriously than I do, please and thank you.
And yes, there are certain characters, especially villains (Kefka and Kuja both shoot right to mind), whose names sound like cannabis strains and will generally be treated accordingly. This might also be a good point to bring up a little note about punctuation and pronouns – generally ignore them because honestly sometimes it just wasn’t possible to get those to line up with the rest of what I want to be going on in the stories. So, do me a solid and ignore that stuff. Remember, I said this is supposed to be fun, not homework.
UQF: Backstage At The Ghostly Theater
I’m calling the third storyline “Backstage at the Ghostly Theater” – hopefully the reference here is simply jumping out at any David Hume fans (Do we have any Hume fans in the audience with us tonight? Yes? Fantastic, I just love the sound of scattered awkward applause. Thank you, you’ve been great! Goodnight!) Anyway, Hume referred to the human mind – consciousness, ego, self, whatever the hell you want to call it – as a ghostly theater, because no matter how much you might want to get a hold of that core and have it be something you can point to and display in the light of day (looking at you, Kant) all you will ever get are fleeting thoughts, images, snippets of spectral conversation between – well…who? or what? Different aspects of some unitary yet ephemeral self? Different parts of brains that are responsible for different drives, inclinations, decision trees? Different colonies of gut bacteria communicating across the voids that punctuate the corporeal metropolis that is the human body? What exactly?… Well, anyway, this storyline will just be a glimpse into my personal inner monologue (or dialogue if you are so inclined).
Fair warning, you will see a lot of self-deprecating humor here, but please don’t worry, it’s not an accurate reflection of how I actually feel about myself. The truth is (the real dope, if I may): is that I think life should be enjoyable and even sometimes fun, and I think jokes are fun. And if the joke is funny, I really don’t mind making myself the butt of it, because (a) it’s a joke, not some deep personal insight – it’s funny because it’s a foam dart and not a real one, lighten up; and (b) I have found, personally, that one of the best ways to keep life enjoyable is to not take your place in Life too seriously. We are all so fragile and fleeting – and pretending that we aren’t only seems to ever lead to sadness and profound mental unwellness. Likewise for dwelling on the facts of our existential fragilities as well, and pretty much all of my self-deprecating jokes are directed at correcting an unbalance leaning toward either of those two tendencies. So take it as such.
Like I said earlier, the entire UQF project is a coping mechanism or sorts, and the particular types of steam being blown off in Backstage at the Ghostly Theater are the all-too-human tendencies to pretend we are something more solid than we really are as well as mucking about in the mire of human frailty. Neither tendency is particularly healthy or desirable imho.
Aaaaaaaaaaaanyhoo…those are the three separate shows within a show (not really sure UQF constitutes a “show”, but I’m also not sure what a better word would be, and honestly I didn’t (and still don’t) think it matters enough to care about – so if you find yourself irritated at my use of the word “show” in this context, then might you consider, “lol nerd”. But seriously, I’m gonna call them shows until I hear someone use a word that I like better. cool.)
Thence the Names
One last remark on names – as fans of the franchise are well aware, most FF games allow you to customize the names of the playable characters within certain limits. I consider naming your own characters one of the fun parts of the games, so I take full advantage being one of those weirdos that think the point of playing games is to have fun. Anyway, some of the screenshots you’ll see will have different names for some of the same characters – this is because I had some screenshots saved from previous play-throughs on my phone before I thought up this little project and then actually started to go through with it. Sidenote: I honestly didn’t realize how freakin many different bits of dialogue there are in these games until I tried to capture as many of them as possible. It gives me a whole new level of appreciation for the people who put their time and effort into making these games. And not just how much work it must take, but also how well they do it in tons of subtle ways. Each of these games is such a fun experiment in collaborative storytelling – I really do applaud everyone who works on them.
As to how I chose the names: The central characters are pretty much always McNat, for obvious reasons, and the female lead is usually Tracers (I wonder if you can guess the why’s and wherefor’s of that one?). The other characters generally have two sources for their names: (a) I change a couple of letters or syllables into something that for whatever reason I find funny (this is my most common naming convention); or (b) it popped into my head at the end of however long a chain of subconscious associations and I thought it was funny at the time (and probably still do tbqh. Even if it’s cringe. Nay! Especially if it’s cringe).
The Reason Why You Probably Want To Hit Up The FAQs
Before I wrap this up, one last final word, answering I’m sure everyone’s first question – Am I allowed to do this? What about copyright? Won’t I get in trouble? Truth is, I have no fucking clue but probably *shrug emoji*. Honestly, if the proprietors of the FF franchise want to come after me for what is essentially a full on marketing campaign that they have to sink zero monies or efforts into, then I guess that’s what they’re gonna do. I’d deal with it then. Or they could just enjoy it, too, with the added pleasure of seeing their own hard work living on in other forms, their words and images telling new stories, like the way humans have been doing since there were humans. Heck, like the game itself does with the names of characters, weapons, monsters, etc, etc, taken from the pages and oral traditions of stories from around the world.
Anyway, on with the show. This fire ain’t gonna unquest itself: Let’s get out there and quench some goddam flames, bitches!
About Me
Has a PhD in Comparative Literature and is trying to see if there’s anything he can do with it in a world that is wobbling on way too many axes at once. Has some opinions about stuff but despite all that he’s really just a big sweetie.
To further encourage my shenanigans you can go to: buymeacoffee.com/NatMurphy
