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here-but-forgotten · 3 months

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you lost me. / valeria/wife!reader.

content notes — ex-wife!valeria. sweet alejandro. little shit rodolfo. mean valeria. plot heavy. el sin nombre foreshadowing. rudy weirdo rizz.

part one \ part two

A confident knock echos from the door through the walls, dancing around your ears as the noise registered, for you to finally walk to the door that had never been knocked before,

With a slender foggy window lending you a quick glimpse of the figure, you open the door, your eyes landing on a chest where you expected the eyes to be.

“Hello,” he starts, confident but still speaking volume, “Could I ask you some questions?”

You look up at him, blinking; not fully in a uniform but not in casual clothing. Lines around his eyes. Facial hair turning grey. Dark eyes. Intense eyes.

“Um,” You start, adverting your eyes from his, “Could I ask why first?”

He adjusts, halfway awkward, shifting his weight.

“That’s an understandable ask,” He answers, relaxing a little, “I’m Colonel Alejandro Vargas, I wanted to ask you some questions related to Valeria Garza.”

You pause, blinking.

“Your last name is what?”

“Vargas.”

You stifle an insecure giggle,

“I thought you said ‘Vergas’—“

“No—“ Alejandro cuts you off, letting a small smile escape from him, holding in a laugh, “no, God didn’t curse me with that.”

You let yourself giggle, covering your mouth and turning a bit away as he lets out the chuckle he held in, laughing with you.

“Sorry,” You laugh a little, finally taking a breath, “What are you asking about?”

He pulls his demeanor together, a bit more serious,

“If I have been told correctly, you are who she claimed to be her wife, yes?”

“At one time I was, yes,” You shift, “Not anymore.”

“Did she leave any sort of technology here?”

You tilt your head a bit, looking up at him.

“She did. Is that a problem?”

Alejandro sighs at your inquisition.

“I have some reason to believe she took something that could track her location with her when she has done work for me. If she did, there is a lot someone could gain from that if they did track it.”

You look aside, thinking about that damned dinged up phone.

“Would it be a threat to me?”

“I would say, without much other info, that yes it could be a threat to you.”

You don’t respond.

“I don’t know you, but I do know what has recently happened,” He starts, “If someone could track it, she could track it, and could track you.”

“Do you want me to give it to you?”

“If you are able, yes.”

You turn, leaving the door open,

“You.. You can come in, if you’d like.”

You move, his footsteps following you briefly and stopping as you walked further into the home, finding the half-held together phone that she left that you had kept in what used to be her bedside table. You stop, looking at the bed; the new sheets on it looked nice, it finally looked comfy, like somewhere safe. And theres a small pang in your chest, that the person who used to make it warm was gone, the person who was why the bed wasn’t just a humble full size, but,

it was for the best, and you told your chest that everyday.

You deserve someone who gives you the time of day, who makes time for you, even if they’re busy.

And you turn on your toes, walking back to the entrance way that the Colonel sat at—

Colonel Alejandro Vargas.

Col. A. Vargas

CAV.

“Do you think, by any chance, that you were contacting her with this phone?”

You look to him— his hip leaned against the counter with his arms casually crossed, his eyes gentle but alert, his expression once relaxed turned into his eyebrow raised.

“It is a possibility,” He murmurs, “It seems like the two of us learned a lot recently.”

“Valeria?”

“No, you and I.”

His stare is unwavering, not so assertive but ever confident, making you shift on your feet as he watched you.

“Yeah. It would seem like the two of us have.”

He lets out a small hum in response, eyeing the phone being held together by tape and faith.

“I’ve seen that one before,” He says, lowly, to himself more than you.

“She has a lot of phones.”

“Is that so?” he asks, watching you.

“Yeah, she probably had 5, at my guess now,” You shift, “But I know that you guys sometimes have a lot of phones—“

“2. We normally have 2.”

His gaze is a bit intense, not directed at you, yet it still sent a small shake through your body; there was a certain charm, yet that didn’t stop the intensity of his thoughts.

Silently, you offer the phone to him, looking up to him, soft blinks trying to pull him from his thoughts.

“Thank you,” Alejandro says after a moment in his thoughts, delicately taking the phone from your outstretched hand, fingers brushing yours softly; his touch is hot, like he was running on coals—

“Did she ever introduce you to any military personnel?”

“No.”

He raises his eyebrow at that.

“None?”

“No. I only found out about you from her accidentally saying something.”

Theres a type of pity in his gaze, maybe even guilt.

“Does she have any sort of surveillance on this property?”

“No. I don’t think she would come back for it anyway. Frankly, she hasn’t been back since she left.”

“When was that?”

“A week or so now.”

“Did she introduce you to.. anyone?”

“Not really.”

“Did that not concern you at all?”

His tone is gentle, lacking any judgement.

“It should have. But love makes you dumb sometimes.”

He tilts his head in an agreement, glancing down at the phone.

“Have you entered this phone or deleted anything off of it?”

“I’ve looked around it, but I haven’t deleted anything. It’s all as I found it.”

Alejandro nods, glancing off to the side for a moment, letting you watch his face; his hair isn’t really “done”, only combed back with fingers, some curls breaking free from pomade, curling around his ear.

“I’m sorry you had to go through all of that,” he says after a moment.

“I’m sure you’ve gone through worse.”

“I chose to go through worse. But you didn’t.”

You watch him, his words full of soft mercy.

“I suppose I didn’t, but I made it.”

He nods again, looking back to you.

“I’m going to leave you a number. You call it if you ever need something. Especially if she comes back to give you a hard time,” He explains, back to his colonel voice— you assume— not leaving much room for discussion.

You watch him, his movements are confident, leaving a small writing pad with the top sheet scribbled on, a phone number, a title— “los vaqueros”

“The cowboys?” You ask tentatively, looking up at him.

God he’s big.

Shush.

“I don’t have time to explain all of that,” He says, a bit affectionately, a little smile, “But if you need something, you call this without hesitation, okay?”

“What if it’s stupid?”

His eyes are a bit soft.

“It won’t be.”

His eyes leave you, looking at the counter, noticing the little shine on the countertop— still where Valeria left it.

“Did she really walk out and just leave her ring?”

You don’t look at it.

“Yeah.”

He rolls his eyes.

“She’s a walking headache.”

“She’s a charming walking headache.”

“I’m aware,” he grumbles shortly, not irritated at you.

“I,” you start, grabbing his attention immediately, “I don’t know what happened with you, really, but I’m sorry you had to deal with that.”

“She’s not your problem to apologize for anymore.”

“I know, but it still sucks to go through something like that, no matter who did it.”

His gaze is soft.

“You’re a very sweet woman.”

His eyes glance away from you, a bit awkwardly,

“I have one… thing to tell you, but it’s not fun.”

You pull a deep breath through your chest, crossing your arms over your chest,

“Rip the bandage off.”

Alejandro shifts, leaning against the counter, mimicking your crossed arms,

“She had that marriage license nullified, somehow, a while ago now. Maybe half a year.”

The news should rock you, pull through your bones, crush your soul a bit— but it’s hard to be disappointed by something you have no faith in.

You stand for a moment, letting the words set in, waiting for your stomach to fall, to crumble your very being up into a useless little paper ball, but it doesn’t come. Your head isn’t light. Your feet are grounded. Nothing sways your balance.

“I can’t say I’m surprised,” You finally say, not looking at him.

Alejandro is quiet for a moment, tense.

“You’ve already told me to not apologize, but,” He pauses, shifting his weight to one of his feet, “That’s why I didn’t fight back, when she approached me. She told me it was long done.”

“You can’t control her bullshit.”

That pulls a laugh out of him, from deep in his chest, releasing the tension he held.

“Yeah, I guess I can’t.”

He shifts again.

“What’s more frustrating is there is other— falsified— paperwork that now says you’re dead.”

You shift, uncomfortably.

“So now there are documents that don’t line up. On one, you two have divorced— in the United States— and on another you’ve been dead.”

“What would she gain from lying about all of that?”

He sighs.

“I have no clue. I cannot, within my position, just assume things based out of interpersonal actions; however, I don’t think anything innocent would come out of that.”

“She didn’t falsify a death certificate, did she?”

“No. That’s what tipped all of this off.”

You finally move a bit, letting your body relax.

“Something is up with her. I have no idea what.”

Alejandro is lost in thought for a moment, staring at the opposite wall; you watch him, the gears turning in his head with a focused but somewhat serene expression, eyes slightly moving as the follows his thoughts—

“I should be going now. Please, use that number. There are dangers she could have exposed you to without you knowing,” Alejandro murmurs, walking to the door, you silently following him. You grasp the door knob as he enters the door way, your hand gently touching his back— the touch making him jump a little.

“Thank you,” You murmur, your touch leaving him resting your hand on the door, meeting your eyes over his shoulder.

“Of course.”

You close the door, watching his figure walk to a jeep— confident stride, nice body hidden under military clothes, gentle eyes—

Don’t you dare.

You breathe deep, moving back into the home, the sunlight twinkling in through the curtains, warm sunset light dancing like little figures, warming up the light in the room. His voice— his words— rattle around your head, her antics annoying you more than they were able to hurt you—

This has been long dead. It has been dead, since she seems to have officially killed it, but now the dead weight had been removed, like matted hair that couldn’t be saved. It’s been shaved off; it wasn’t fun, but now it’s better. You are better. You are growing back. You are lighter. You are able to breathe.

You turn on your toes, walking back to the counter to look at the pad with the number written on it; his handwriting, or whoever wrote this, isn’t bad but it’s not pretty. A bit slanted. Legible. You take the pad in your hand, feeling over the writing— written with a ballpoint pen— before pulling out your own phone, entering it under a quick little new contact, marking it LV.

If she gets to have cryptic contacts, I do too.

You place it back down, looking into the greater house, warmth flooding in the sunlight.

You think it should hurt more— something so momentous ending— yet it also makes sense. It died slowly. There is no cruel, fast pain in a slow death. There is slow pain, the type that slowly makes your joints go still, where your chests twists and breaks, piece by piece, like peeling off old paint. It wasn’t a quick death. There was no quick cut, no guillotine, no bullet, no knife. It was a slow poison. It was terminal. When you realize it’s dying, it hurts. You wonder what you did wrong. You blame every piece that you didn’t do on yourself, just to try to rationalize it. To try to make it make sense. But sometimes, death comes, and sometimes it is slow, and sometimes it is quick, but death has to happen. It has to. Death allows for rot. Rot allows for growth. Growth is new life. There is no new life without the rot that death provides. But there is still no less hopeless ending than death, if you are not looking for the new buds of flowers.

You breathe, escaping your thoughts for a moment, looking out the windows, sun pungent and powerful.

And it should hurt more, that instead of even growing up and coming to you to say she wanted it to end, that she decided to do it on her own, to cheat with two people, to just use you as a housekeeper until she came back, just to be a bedwarmer. But at this point, it wasn’t anything new. It was the first infidelity— that you knew of— and it was two cases of it, yet it wasn’t surprising. Disappointing, but not surprising. Disappointing as a situation, not disappointing for her. Theres a few sentences, a few conversations that haunt you, between you and her, still; when her attention was on you, she still spilled her rotten blood onto you, almost to temper you into it—

Things about her impatience with partner, things about how she really didn’t like talking about her feelings, how she found relationships as a distraction. How she never admitted her feelings, she just let them die. How she knew that work would always mean more to her than a relationship. And how she tried to shroud it in telling you how you were the exception— you were the one she would put work behind for, the one she’d admit her feelings for, the one she’d stay loyal for. Exceptions to a rule are delicate. And sometimes, they’re just a lie. And how she had no hand in picking out the house, she let you pick it out, like a dog picking their favorite kennel.

Your eyes leave the sun light, blinking the haze away as you notice movement outside, grabbing the notepad quickly— throwing it in a drawer quickly— and striding to the door, an all too familiar figure standing, not moving.

Moving away from the door, you tap the newly formed contact, moving to the bedroom as the phone rang against your ear.

“¿Hola?”

It wasn’t Alejandro.

“Um, hello,” You awkwardly start, the other person breathing a sharp breath, “Colonel Ve-Vargas gave me this number in case I needed something.”

There is a pause.

“Oh. You.”

Pause.

“Is something wrong?”

“Valeria Garza is back, and she has a man with her.”

Pause.

“Do not answer the door, and keep away from it. Hang tight. Understand?”

“Yes, sir,” you say in a softer voice, the other’s breath hitching at that.

“Do you want me to stay on the phone with you?”

“You don’t have to.”

“Then you’ll see me soon.”

Click.

Ominous.

His voice wasn’t Alejandro’s, something a bit more smooth about his delivery, ever slightly colder.

And so you moved to the bedroom door, silently closing and locking it, watching the covered windows for any movement. You sit on the floor beside the bed, as to not have your silhouette in the window, watching. Waiting. There is a soft distant noise of talking, Spanish, a bit rushed and irritated. Her Spanish. Romance languages can be many things, but she fully embraced the Roman cruelty in her words. Footsteps. Around the windows, tracing the house. Only two pairs of footsteps.

Until.

A bit of irritated shouting, from the door, following the footsteps around the house. You move along the floor, against the wall closest to the window, trying to listen—

“— do you think you’re doing?”

“do not lecture me—“

“go back to the cars. now.”

The same slightly grumpy voice, and hers.

You follow the trail, standing in the kitchen, keeping an ear out.

“I own this property—“

“Valeria, I cannot tell you how little of a shit I give. You directly disobeyed an order.”

“It was an overreach!”

“Don’t care.”

“Rodolfo—“

“That’s Sergeant Major to you.”

“I am going to stab you.”

“You won’t.”

Pause.

“I just want to talk to her.”

“Leave your gun then.”

“But—“

“I’m impressed you got someone who wanted to spend the rest of their life dealing with you.”

Pause.

“Leave the gun and I’ll let you speak to her.”

“What are you, my father?”

“If I was your father, you wouldn’t act like a fucking brat.”

Pause.

“I really want to kill you sometimes.”

“The feeling is mutual.”

Knock knock.

You move to the door, peering to see a male figure standing outside of the door. You slowly open the door.

“hello?”

“Neña—“

“Shut up. I’m the one who spoke to you on the phone,” He cuts her off, “Do you want to speak to her or do you want her gone?”

“I can speak to her. I would appreciate if you stayed though,” You respond calmly, sweetly, looking up at him, his gaze gentle on you.

“I wanted to speak to you alone,” Valeria starts, her voice scarily gentle, keeping her tone even.

“I don’t want that.” You say firmly, the man standing between you and her. Another man hangs behind, looking like a dog with his tail between his legs.

The man nods, staying where he was, but moving a bit to let you see Valeria.

“Do you not trust me anymore?” Valeria asks softly, her gaze soft. A trap.

“Do you think I’m that stupid?”

He snorts.

“I know I’ve messed up, but I miss you.”

“Okay.”

He cracks a small smirk, turning his gaze away from the two of you.

“I didn’t mean to leave you behind.”

“You can accidentally hit someone with your car and it’s still manslaughter.”

She rolls her eyes, her façade dropping for a moment, only to recompose herself.

“Can I come inside?”

You look at the man, his gaze both interested and bored, his eyes meeting yours for a moment. You move, pulling his forearm inside the house, his body moving stiffly at the movement, following you. Valeria shoots you a glare, following. The other man stands outside.

“Lovely, I really never noticed how bad we had gotten,” Valeria says, reaching for you as you move back, the man standing beside you, becoming a silent comforting presence, “But I don’t want it to be over.”

“I gave you as much as I could, and that wasn’t enough. So how would now be any different?”

“I can change.”

“Just between you and me,” He interjects, leaning towards you, inches from your ear, “She’s been a bitch since she was 8 and couldn’t find the tooth she had lost.”

You giggle.

“This has nothing to do with you,” She sneers, glaring up at him. He only shrugs with a slight smile.

“This is exhausting, you know,” you say, pulled together, calm, “you can’t start caring about something once it’s dead.”

“It’s not dead, it just needs to be restarted.”

You blink.

“Valeria, we’ve been dead for months.”

“We haven’t—“

“What about that marriage certificate mess?”

She pauses.

“It was for your own good, I don’t want someone finding you because of me.”

The mans head tilts a bit in your peripheral vision.

“Aside from us not legally being one anymore, you barely gave me the time of day. I could be right in front of you and you would ignore me. I was here the entire time, like a fucking little kid, waiting on you, only for you to never give me anything in return.”

“Relationships aren’t transactional,” She says, bitter. Thick with bitter. Patience running thin.

“No, they aren’t. But they do take work on both sides to work. And I can’t carry the weight of two.”

Valeria is quiet.

“I wish you had left me wandering about you, it would have saved me a lot of heartache,” you pause, “You made me feel like I was your world, then you ripped it away the minute I accepted that.”

“You like accusing me of a lot,” She snaps, the sweet glaze finally washed away, “I gave you everything I could.”

“‘Everything I could’ is disingenuous if you had to divide it three ways.”

Valeria sighs, deep, angry,

“If you would just fucking shut up for once and let me talk you would act right!” Her voice booms, flinch taking your gaze away, your head light as your thoughts block themselves out. You stand spinning, feet still but disoriented, and all of a sudden, you were small again. You were just polishing dishes to make her happy. You were throwing out that perfume you loved and she hated. You were waiting up until you fell asleep on the couch, only to wake up alone with dirty dishes to clean. You are small again.

“Garza.”

His voice cuts through the haze, confident, unwavering. His touch rests on your shoulder blade, weighing you back down on the uncomfortable reality.

“This doesn’t fucking include you.”

He sighs, his fingers gently rubbing your back, warmth seeping through your clothes.

“Could you act grown for once?”

Valeria is quiet.

“Your picket-fence has been sharp as knives. You never loved me. You wanted to collect the hearts you took.”

“I hate how you make me out to be the bad guy.”

“Valeria, I am tired of you. I am so very tired. You owe me so much sleep.”

“Why do you want to give up on us?”

You sigh. The two of you would just talk in circles until one of you died from exhaustion.

“Valeria, I could give you my heart and you would forget you had it. I could tell you time and time again the extent of my love and you would find no worth in it. I could drop everything to make a little piece of your life easier and it isn’t enough for you.”

“You were enough.”

“You say that like a faithless prayer. If I ever was enough you wouldn’t run to other people. If I was enough you wouldn’t have attacked me over a simple question. You wouldn’t assume that I was the thing that always hurt you. You wouldn’t only think of me first when something went wrong. And it doesn’t matter what I tell you, because I know you won’t believe me.”

“Why wouldn’t I believe you?”

“You haven’t believed me before,” You hesitate, the mans presence beside you evident, vulnerable, “I held out every night for you. I thought you’d notice me— not my body, not my wit, not my helpfulness— but me. And that never happened. I told you I felt bad, and I ripped my heart apart to try to get you to care, and the only thing you did with it was turn it against me. You told me I could lean on you then guilted me when I was too heavy.”

You shift, swallowing thick, trying to soothe your constraining throat,

“I remember when you acted like you loved me. You acted like I was your favorite toy, like I was the one you’d keep on your bed, the one you’d put in pretty dresses and kiss before bed. Then the minute— the fucking second— I thought you would be gentle with me, you ripped it all away. I sought after you day after day after day and I got nothing. And now I know, you had the chance to. I just wasn’t your priority.”

She stares. Your eyes tingle.

“I kept convincing myself the more attention and love I gave you, the more I’d receive. That when you didn’t reciprocate, you were just in a bad space. But it’s been years. There hasn’t been a day where I could just talk to you. And I’ve learned now you were spending them with other people. I’ve learned I’m the thing you keep in your back pocket when no one else will talk to you. I’ve learned that I’m the pretty toy you show off that you got just to throw me under your bed. I cannot imagine that you love me when I have never been what you wanted. Bad times come, but bad times don’t mean you run away from love. You go towards it. And you found it else where.”

You swollow again, choking on your own throat,

“I’ve been the stupid schoolgirl chasing someone who never looked me in the eye this entire time. And I feel stupid for it now, but I choose now to break out of it. You never claimed you love me so until we were dead and gone. You can’t dig up the corpse to hold it.”

There is silence. Your heartbeat. Your breathing. Valeria’s eyes burning into you.

“You kept me like a secret but I kept you like an oath.”

Valeria sighs.

Valeria is quiet.

Her eyes don’t meet yours.

“Go back to base, Garza. Before anymore actions are taken over this.”

“You don’t get to be in charge of me—“

“I am. Go back.”

He stands, she stands, finally moving from her place, shooting a glare over her shoulder as she slammed the door behind her, the same pots hitting the wall in her wake. A car door slamming in the same manner. Ignition. The sound leaving in the distance.

You stood, crossing your arms over yourself.

Breathe in, breathe through, breathe deep, breathe out.

The man beside you awkwardly shifts.

“I never got your name,” You say, a little croak in your voice.

“Rodolfo. Sergeant Major Rodolfo Parra.”

You nod to yourself.

“Thank you.”

He hums a quiet response, relaxing his frame.

“I haven’t seen many to go toe to toe with her.”

“Is that a good thing?”

“I would say so,” Rodolfo glances past you, “She’s always had an assertiveness to her, but it devolves into brattiness if pushed enough.”

Quiet.

“Did you two have fights like that before?”

“We’ve had a couple. I joked I would call them the Great Wars. But now I just feel maimed.”

“If I had known about you earlier, I would have warned you earlier,” his voice is soft.

“Have you known her for long?”

“Yeah, grew up in the same area. I vomited on her at her quinceañera.”

“That was you?” You ask with a soft giggle, the noise pulling a soft smile from him.

“Did she still complain about it?”

“Yeah, yeah she did. I thought it was a little silly to still be mad about.”

“I did her a favor. I got her to take off that god-awful dress without having to seduce her.”

“I take it she’s never been able to charm you?”

“No.”

You laugh at that dry response, a comfortable little smile resting on his face, looking down at you with a certain gentleness.

“I don’t handle brats very well.”

You shoot him a curious look.

“Not right now.”

You glance away.

Quiet.

“Thank you for.. all of that.”

He nods.

“I would suggest you try to leave this place. She knows the location too well.”

“I…” You start, his eyes heavy on you, “It’s embarrassing, I don’t really have a way to do that.”

“Did she emotionally trap you to believe that she would be your sole provider while using that to control you in the way she wanted so you were pushed out of any career or financial independence?”

You pause.

“Yeah I guess, sergeant therapist.”

He snickers.

He stops, thinking over your words.

“If you would like, I can set you up living accommodations. No obligation to pay me back in anyway. No obligation to stay. How does that sound?”

“If you weren’t a pretty sergeant I’d say you were trying to kidnap me.”

He shifts a bit at that, flushing a little—

Is that blush?

“Well, If I did that, I’d have Alejandro down my throat. And it’s Sergeant Major.”

“Oh, you two are like that?”

He shoots you a glare.

“You have a dirty mind.”

You giggle, his face having another little smile break out.

“no, we are not,” he says with a head shake like a disappointed father.

You think, not fully clear, but the thought of Valeria randomly popping back up evident. You wouldn’t have to hear the door slam again. The walls rattling because you didn’t win the word game, or because you did. You could do your own dishes. You could strip her from you finally, pulling out the turpentine and mineral spirits, wiping yourself clean with Ivory.

“I think we could work something out like that,” you say softly, sweetly, looking up at him properly. Two moles. Soft eyes. Longer nose than Alejandro.

“You can call me Rudy, if you’d like.”

#valeria garza #valeria call of duty #valeria garza x fem!reader #valeria garza x reader #valeria garza x you #angst #emotional manipulation #alejandro vargas #rodolfo rudy parra #cod #call of duty #cod mw2 #tolerate it.#a kiss of weird rudy rizz

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fireflysummers · 6 months

Text

Heroes, Gods, and the Invisible Narrator

Slay the Princess as a Framework for the Cyclical Reproduction of Colonialist Narratives in Data Science & Technology

An Essay by FireflySummers

All images are captioned.

Content Warnings: Body Horror, Discussion of Racism and Colonialism

Spoilers for Slay the Princess (2023) by @abby-howard and Black Tabby Games.

If you enjoy this article, consider reading my guide to arguing against the use of AI image generators or the academic article it's based on.

Introduction: The Hero and the Princess

You're on a path in the woods, and at the end of that path is a cabin. And in the basement of that cabin is a Princess. You're here to slay her. If you don't, it will be the end of the world.

Slay the Princess is a 2023 indie horror game by Abby Howard and published through Black Tabby Games, with voice talent by Jonathan Sims (yes, that one) and Nichole Goodnight.

The game starts with you dropped without context in the middle of the woods. But that’s alright. The Narrator is here to guide you. You are the hero, you have your weapon, and you have a monster to slay.

From there, it's the player's choice exactly how to proceed--whether that be listening to the voice of the narrator, or attempting to subvert him. You can kill her as instructed, or sit and chat, or even free her from her chains.

It doesn't matter.

Regardless of whether you are successful in your goal, you will inevitably (and often quite violently) die.

And then...

You are once again on a path in the woods.

The cycle repeats itself, the narrator seemingly none the wiser. But the woods are different, and so is the cabin. You're different, and worse... so is she.

Based on your actions in the previous loop, the princess has... changed. Distorted.

Had you attempted a daring rescue, she is now a damsel--sweet and submissive and already fallen in love with you.

Had you previously betrayed her, she has warped into something malicious and sinister, ready to repay your kindness in full.

But once again, it doesn't matter.

Because the no matter what you choose, no matter how the world around you contorts under the weight of repeated loops, it will always be you and the princess.

Why? Because that’s how the story goes.

So says the narrator.

So now that we've got that out of the way, let's talk about data.

Chapter I: Echoes and Shattered Mirrors

The problem with "data" is that we don't really think too much about it anymore. Or, at least, we think about it in the same abstract way we think about "a billion people." It's gotten so big, so seemingly impersonal that it's easy to forget that contemporary concept of "data" in the west is a phenomenon only a couple centuries old [1].

This modern conception of the word describes the ways that we translate the world into words and numbers that can then be categorized and analyzed. As such, data has a lot of practical uses, whether that be putting a rover on mars or tracking the outbreak of a viral contagion. However, this functionality makes it all too easy to overlook the fact that data itself is not neutral. It is gathered by people, sorted into categories designed by people, and interpreted by people. At every step, there are people involved, such that contemporary technology is embedded with systemic injustices, and not always by accident.

The reproduction of systems of oppression are most obvious from the margins. In his 2019 article As If, Ramon Amaro describes the Aspire Mirror (2016): a speculative design project by by Joy Buolamwini that contended with the fact that the standard facial recognition algorithm library had been trained almost exclusively on white faces. The simplest solution was to artificially lighten darker skin-tones for the algorithm to recognize, which Amaro uses to illustrate the way that technology is developed with an assumption of whiteness [2].

This observation applies across other intersections as well, such as trans identity [3], which has been colloquially dubbed "The Misgendering Machine" [4] for its insistence on classifying people into a strict gender binary based only on physical appearance.

This has also popped up in my own research, brought to my attention by the artist @b4kuch1n who has spoken at length with me about the connection between their Vietnamese heritage and the clothing they design in their illustrative work [5]. They call out AI image generators for reinforcing colonialism by stripping art with significant personal and cultural meaning of their context and history, using them to produce a poor facsimile to sell to the highest bidder.

All this describes an iterative cycle which defines normalcy through a white, western lens, with a limited range of acceptable diversity. Within this cycle, AI feeds on data gathered under colonialist ideology, then producing an artifact that reinforces existing systemic bias. When this data is, in turn, once again fed to the machine, that bias becomes all the more severe, and the range of acceptability narrower [2, 6].

Luciana Parisi and Denise Ferreira da Silva touch on a similar point in their article Black Feminist Tools, Critique, and Techno-poethics but on a much broader scale. They call up the Greek myth of Prometheus, who was punished by the gods for his hubris for stealing fire to give to humanity. Parisi and Ferreira da Silva point to how this, and other parts of the “Western Cosmology” map to humanity’s relationship with technology [7].

However, while this story seems to celebrate the technological advancement of humanity, there are darker colonialist undertones. It frames the world in terms of the gods and man, the oppressor and the oppressed; but it provides no other way of being. So instead the story repeats itself, with so-called progress an inextricable part of these two classes of being. This doesn’t bode well for visions of the future, then–because surely, eventually, the oppressed will one day be the machines [7, 8].

It’s… depressing. But it’s only really true, if you assume that that’s the only way the story could go.

“Stories don't care who takes part in them. All that matters is that the story gets told, that the story repeats. Or, if you prefer to think of it like this: stories are a parasitical life form, warping lives in the service only of the story itself.” ― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

Chapter II: The Invisible Narrator

So why does the narrator get to call the shots on how a story might go? Who even are they? What do they want? How much power do they actually have?

With the exception of first person writing, a lot of the time the narrator is invisible. This is different from an unreliable narrator. With an unreliable narrator, at some point the audience becomes aware of their presence in order for the story to function as intended. An invisible narrator is never meant to be seen.

In Slay the Princess, the narrator would very much like to be invisible. Instead, he has been dragged out into the light, because you (and the inner voices you pick up along the way), are starting to argue with him. And he doesn’t like it.

Despite his claims that the princess will lie and cheat in order to escape, as the game progresses it’s clear that the narrator is every bit as manipulative–if not moreso, because he actually knows what’s going on. And, if the player tries to diverge from the path that he’s set before them, the correct path, then it rapidly becomes clear that he, at least to start, has the power to force that correct path.

While this is very much a narrative device, the act of calling attention to the narrator is important beyond that context.

The Hero’s Journey is the true monomyth, something to which all stories can be reduced. It doesn’t matter that the author, Joseph Campbell, was a raging misogynist whose framework flattened cultures and stories to fit a western lens [9, 10]. It was used in Star Wars, so clearly it’s a universal framework.

The metaverse will soon replace the real world and crypto is the future of currency! Never mind that the organizations pushing it are suspiciously pyramid shaped. Get on board or be left behind.

Generative AI is pushed as the next big thing. The harms it inflicts on creatives and the harmful stereotypes it perpetuates are just bugs in the system. Never mind that the evangelists for this technology speak over the concerns of marginalized people [5]. That’s a skill issue, you gotta keep up.

Computers will eventually, likely soon, advance so far as to replace humans altogether. The robot uprising is on the horizon [8].

Who perpetuates these stories? What do they have to gain?

Why is the only story for the future replications of unjust systems of power? Why must the hero always slay the monster?

Because so says the narrator. And so long as they are invisible, it is simple to assume that this is simply the way things are.

Chapter III: The End...?

This is the part where Slay the Princess starts feeling like a stretch, but I’ve already killed the horse so I might as well beat it until the end too.

Because what is the end result here?

According to the game… collapse. A recursive story whose biases narrow the scope of each iteration ultimately collapses in on itself. The princess becomes so sharp that she is nothing but blades to eviscerate you. The princess becomes so perfect a damsel that she is a caricature of the trope. The story whittles itself away to nothing. And then the cycle begins anew.

There’s no climactic final battle with the narrator. He created this box, set things in motion, but he is beyond the player’s reach to confront directly. The only way out is to become aware of the box itself, and the agenda of the narrator. It requires acknowledgement of the artificiality of the roles thrust upon you and the Princess, the false dichotomy of hero or villain.

Slay the Princess doesn’t actually provide an answer to what lies outside of the box, merely acknowledges it as a limit that can be overcome.

With regards to the less fanciful narratives that comprise our day-to-day lives, it’s difficult to see the boxes and dichotomies we’ve been forced into, let alone what might be beyond them. But if the limit placed is that there are no stories that can exist outside of capitalism, outside of colonialism, outside of rigid hierarchies and oppressive structures, then that limit can be broken [12].

Denouement: Doomed by the Narrative

Video games are an interesting artistic medium, due to their inherent interactivity. The commonly accepted mechanics of the medium, such as flavor text that provides in-game information and commentary, are an excellent example of an invisible narrator. Branching dialogue trees and multiple endings can help obscure this further, giving the player a sense of genuine agency… which provides an interesting opportunity to drag an invisible narrator into the light.

There are a number of games that have explored the power differential between the narrator and the player (The Stanley Parable, Little Misfortune, Undertale, Buddy.io, OneShot, etc…)

However, Slay the Princess works well here because it not only emphasizes the artificial limitations that the narrator sets on a story, but the way that these stories recursively loop in on themselves, reinforcing the fears and biases of previous iterations.

Critical data theory probably had nothing to do with the game’s development (Abby Howard if you're reading this, lmk). However, it works as a surprisingly cohesive framework for illustrating the ways that we can become ensnared by a narrative, and the importance of knowing who, exactly, is narrating the story. Although it is difficult or impossible to conceptualize what might exist beyond the artificial limits placed by even a well-intentioned narrator, calling attention to them and the box they’ve constructed is the first step in breaking out of this cycle.

“You can't go around building a better world for people. Only people can build a better world for people. Otherwise it's just a cage.” ― Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

Epilogue

If you've read this far, thank you for your time! This was an adaptation of my final presentation for a Critical Data Studies course. Truthfully, this course posed quite a challenge--I found the readings of philosophers such as Kant, Adorno, Foucault, etc... difficult to parse. More contemporary scholars were significantly more accessible. My only hope is that I haven't gravely misinterpreted the scholars and researchers whose work inspired this piece.

I honestly feel like this might have worked best as a video essay, but I don't know how to do those, and don't have the time to learn or the money to outsource.

Slay the Princess is available for purchase now on Steam.

Screencaps from ManBadassHero Let's Plays: [Part 1] [Part 2] [Part 3] [Part 4] [Part 5] [Part 6]

Post Dividers by @cafekitsune

Citations:

Rosenberg, D. (2018). Data as word. Historical Studies in the Natural Sciences, 48(5), 557-567.

Amaro, Ramon. (2019). As If. e-flux Architecture. Becoming Digital. https://www.e-flux.com/architecture/becoming-digital/248073/as-if/

What Ethical AI Really Means by PhilosophyTube

Keyes, O. (2018). The misgendering machines: Trans/HCI implications of automatic gender recognition. Proceedings of the ACM on human-computer interaction, 2(CSCW), 1-22.

Allred, A.M., Aragon, C. (2023). Art in the Machine: Value Misalignment and AI “Art”. In: Luo, Y. (eds) Cooperative Design, Visualization, and Engineering. CDVE 2023. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 14166. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43815-8_4

Amaro, R. (2019). Artificial Intelligence: warped, colorful forms and their unclear geometries.

Parisisi, L., Ferreira da Silva, D. Black Feminist Tools, Critique, and Techno-poethics. e-flux. Issue #123. https://www.e-flux.com/journal/123/436929/black-feminist-tools-critique-and-techno-poethics/

AI - Our Shiny New Robot King | Sophie from Mars by Sophie From Mars

Joseph Campbell and the Myth of the Monomyth | Part 1 by Maggie Mae Fish

Joseph Campbell and the N@zis | Part 2 by Maggie Mae Fish

How Barbie Cis-ified the Matrix by Jessie Gender

#slay the princess #stp spoilers #stp #stp princess #abby howard #black tabby games #academics #critical data studies #computer science #technology #hci #my academics #my writing #long post

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oneheadtoanother · 3 months

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Alarming New Satellite Can Spy on Individual People

"A startup called Albedo Space is building low-orbit satellites that are able to zoom in on individual humans down on Earth, The New York Times reports. The venture's cofounders say the satellites won't be equipped with identification-ready facial recognition technology, but they will be able to image people — a massive step forward in satellite-abetted surveillance that could seemingly realize some long-held privacy fears. After all, as far as technological Eyes of Saurons could go, a fleet of all-seeing orbital cameras — which according to the NYT have already inked multiple US defense contracts and garnered over $100 million in funding — feels pretty on the nose."

#what's new here is the private sector part #US military has been able to do this for decades

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decolonize-the-left · 2 years

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When 3 in 4 (74%) adults in the U.S. connected the gas, electricity, phone or internet in a new home, ICE was able to automatically learn their new address. Almost all of that has been done warrantlessly and in secret.

Dated May, 10, 2022 a report published by Georgetown Law showed how invasive ICE reaches. Obtained through 200 FOIA requests, the reports says ICE has tracked civilians using utilities, drivers licenses, facial recognition, and even used vulnerable unaccompanied minors being held in detention to find more leads (specifically, searching for more of their family members without documentation) . And they do so without warrants or even informing state legislators. Even companies and corporations have shared info with with ICE without their knowledge or consent.

"Most congressional leaders did not learn about ICE face recognition scans of DMV photos until The Washington Post ran an exposé on the practice, reporting on records obtained by the Center on Privacy & Technology. This exposé ran in 2019, over a decade after ICE penned its first known face recognition contract in 2008 for access to the Rhode Island driver database.

The fact that ICE was conducting face recognition scans on driver’s license photos came as a shock to senior lawmakers – even those with the greatest insight into DHS activities. On learning of the face scans, Rep. Zoe Lofgren, the longtime chair of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Citizenship, denounced the practice as “a massive, unwarranted intrusion into the privacy rights of Americans by the federal government, done secretly and without authorization by law.” ICE’s surveillance initiatives have regularly flown under Congress’ radar. While a few political leaders have pressed ICE in oversight letters and used appropriations riders to end the most aggressive of ICE’s actions, to date there has not been one full congressional hearing or Government Accountability Office (GAO) report focused on ICE surveillance."

Further, even when states become aware and make moves to block ICE from having this kind of access they just use a different door.

In Washington, Governor Jay Inslee enacted a statewide policy to limit state agency cooperation with ICE only to discover that state licensing officials were routinely violating that policy. When state officials cut off ICE’s access to a state-run driver database, previously unseen records show that DHS searches of a separate network of driver data – one not operated by the state – nearly doubled. In Oregon, soon after lawmakers passed a law cutting off state data disclosures to ICE, the Oregon DMV signed agreements to sell its driver’s license records to Thomson Reuters and LexisNexis Risk Solutions, the two primary data brokers that sell ICE access to driver information."

This is a HUGE breach of privacy and goes as far back as 2008 when ICE used facial recognition in Rhode Island under the Bush administration.

The article also discusses the potential danger this has to cause such a deep mistrust in government that it could cause folks to deny or reject state services to avoid being put in an ICE database or otherwise have their data used without knowledge or consent.

Likewise the report also has a section that advises how this privacy could be restored and corrected by Congress. Which means signal boost this. Congress was made aware of these breaches in 2019 and as of yet have done nothing to stop ICE or hold them accountable.

Which means it's on us to hold them accountable because once again the folks in Congress have shown they lack the ambition and initiative.

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nando161mando · 2 months

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"No Tech for Apartheid’s protest is as much about what the public doesn’t know about Project Nimbus as what it does. The contract is for Google and Amazon to provide AI and cloud computing services to the Israeli government and military, according to the Israeli finance ministry, which announced the deal in 2021.

Nimbus reportedly involves Google establishing a secure instance of Google Cloud on Israeli soil, which would allow the Israeli government to perform large-scale data analysis, AI training, database hosting, and other forms of powerful computing using Google’s technology, with little oversight by the company.

Google documents, first reported by the Intercept in 2022, suggest that the Google services on offer to Israel via its Cloud have capabilities such as AI-enabled facial detection, automated image categorization, and object tracking."

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alwaysbewoke · 7 months

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Last summer, as a spike in violent crime hit New Orleans, the city council voted to allow police to use facial-recognition software to track down suspects. It was billed as an effective, fair tool to ID criminals quickly. A year after the system went online, data show the results have been almost exactly the opposite. Records obtained and analyzed by POLITICO show the practice failed to ID suspects a majority of the time and is disproportionately used on Black people. We reviewed nearly a year’s worth of New Orleans facial recognition requests, sent for serious felony crimes including murder and armed robbery. In that time, New Orleans PD sent 19 requests. Of the 15 that went through: 14 were for Black suspects 9 failed to make a match Half of the 6 matches were wrong 1 arrest was made While it hasn’t led to any false arrests, police facial identification in New Orleans appears to confirm what civil rights advocates have argued for years: that it amplifies, rather than corrects, the underlying human biases of the authorities that use them. U.S. lawmakers of both parties have tried for years to limit how police can use facial recognition, but have yet to enact any laws. Some states have passed limited rules, like those preventing its use on body cameras in California or banning its use in schools in New York. A few left-leaning cities have fully banned law enforcement use of the technology. For two years, in the wake of the George Floyd protests, New Orleans was one of them. “This department hung their hat on this,” said New Orleans Councilmember At-Large JP Morrell, a Democrat who voted against lifting the ban and has seen the NOPD data. Its use of the system, he says, has been “wholly ineffective and pretty obviously racist.” (NOPD denies that its usage of facial recognition is racially biased). Politically, New Orleans’ City Council is split on facial recognition, but a slim majority of its members — alongside the police, mayor and local businesses — still support its use, despite the results of the past year.

#racism in ai #ai ethics #bias in tech #ai for social justice #algorithmic bias #ai responsibility #inclusive tech #ai and racism

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taviamoth · 2 months

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🚨 Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor:

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The involvement of technology and social media companies in causing the killing of civilians by "israel" in the Gaza Strip necessitates an immediate investigation.

These companies should be held accountable and liable if their complicity or failure to exercise due diligence in preventing access to and exploitation of their users’ private information is proven, obligating them to ensure their services are not misused in war zones and that they protect user privacy.

"Israel" uses various technology systems supported by artificial intelligence, such as Gospel, Fire Factory, Lavender, and Where’s Daddy, all operating within a system aimed at monitoring Palestinians illegally and tracking their movements.

These systems function to identify and designate suspected individuals as legitimate targets, based mostly on shared characteristics and patterns rather than specific locations or personal information.

The accuracy of the information provided by these systems is rarely verified by the occupation army, despite a known large margin of error due to the nature of these systems' inability to provide updated information.

The Lavender system, heavily used by the occupation army to identify suspects in Gaza before targeting them, is based on probability logic, a hallmark of machine learning algorithms.

"Israeli" military and intelligence sources have admitted to attacking potential targets without consideration for the principle of proportionality and collateral damage, with suspicions that the Lavender system relies on tracking social media accounts among its sources.

Recently, "israel's" collaboration with Google was revealed, including several technological projects, among them Project Nimbus which provides the occupation army with technology that facilitates intensified surveillance and data collection on Palestinians illegally.

The occupation army also uses Google's facial recognition feature in photos to monitor Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip and to compile an "assassination list," collecting a vast amount of images related to the October 7th operation.

The Euro-Mediterranean field team has collected testimonies from Palestinian civilians directly targeted in Israeli military attacks following their activities on social media sites, without any involvement in military actions.

The potential complicity of companies like Google and Meta and other technology and social media firms in the violations and crimes committed by "israel" breaches international law rules and the companies' declared commitment to human rights.

No social network should provide this kind of private information about its users and actually participate in the mass genocide conducted by "israel" against Palestinian civilians in Gaza, which demands an international investigation providing guarantees for accountability and justice for the victims.

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vespidaze · 1 year

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youtube

ID: Two animated gifs of p03 from Inscryption, drawn in green pixel art. In the first gif, an ellipses flashes on its screen face. On the second gif, it flips through 4 different facial expressions: Neutral, annoyed, smug, and the face of an angry stoat. End ID.

I think I'm getting the hang of using Asesprite. Here's a cover of this track from the Inscryption OST: "The Scrybe of Technology". It's my favorite :]

#inscryption #p03 #ves art #ves tunes #i love love the inscryption ost it makes me Autistic #Youtube

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metalheadsforblacklivesmatter · 1 year

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Companies are trying really hard to create face recognition that can see through any feature-distorting makeup and partially covering features, and the internet being as gullible it is, you're freely giving their AI test data to do this by doing these dumb trends.

So, let's say... hypothetically... you were at a protest or something... and wanted to hide your face... this is all hypothetical...

Cover your entire face. Black unidentifiable mask for the bottom of your face and plain black unidentifiable sunglasses (or tinted goggles) for the top half. Give them NO FEATURES to work with

IR LED lights. They're small, inconspicuous, can be used in broad daylight, and blind the camera to your facial features (Here's a link to a practical example)

IR Lenses to reflect infrared lights to hide your eyes from IR technology (This site is an add but this explains the general concept.)

If were to hypothetically wanting to wear a face shield to a protest... because we are in a pandemic... hypothetically...

(Don't buy anything that can be tracked. I know the sites that I shared are selling products, but like the government is going to try to track it. I shared those sites to share the science behind it. Do your research. For most of the things you need could probably be bought at your local hardware store... )

This is hypothetical... after all, there's questionable legality here. This is all hypothetical. I'm not saying you do it.

-fae

#black lives matter #blm #black lives still matter

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sydney-carton-of-sour-milk · 4 months

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The Many Illustrators of A Tale of Two Cities 1: Hablot Knight Browne (a.k.a. Phiz)

...& a century-and-a-half-long game of telephone...

For the first post in a series on the book's illustrators, how could we start with any but the very first one?

"Although a number of critics have pilloried Hablot Knight Browne ('Phiz') for his supposed ineptitude in the program of illustration for A Tale of Two Cities, the fact that he so astutely realized and graphically elaborated so many significant elements of Dickens's letterpress is evidence that his pictorial series reflects an extremely careful reading of the printed text...The visual accompaniment [that these illustrations provided to the novel's monthly installments] was not mere ornamentation, but an aide-mémoire intended to facilitate the monthly reader's keeping track of a discontinuous narrative over a period of seven months."

from "Charles Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" (1859) Illustrated: A Critical Reassessment of Hablot Knight Browne's Accompanying Plates" by Philip V. Allingham from the 2003 volume of the journal Dickens Studies Annual.

Frontispiece Cover to the Monthly Installments Vignette

For some perspective on the significance of this first set of illustrations - published initially within monthly installments of the novel in 1859 (the text of which was collected from the original weekly installments published in All the Year Round, also in 1859) - that single quote comes from an entire article on these illustrations that is itself 49 pages long.

The Mail

As such, suffice it to say that this particular post will not be a thorough examination of the history, context, and impact of these illustrations (though, for those interested, be sure to click on any links you see throughout this post for all sorts of further reading!).

The Shoemaker

Instead, it will simply be a place to observe and appreciate these illustrations for what they are, in their "original" glory.

The Likeness

...I mean, just look at these things! (I'm of course gonna break formality after this one because it's my favorite😌)

Congratulations

In terms of the odyssey of finding the proper edition of these to post, "original" is the operative word.

The Stoppage at the Fountain

These are the oldest (except for some or possibly all of McLenan's...more on that many months from now though) and certainly the most iconic of the illustrations of this novel and thus have also had the most mileage, having been passed from edition to edition to edition countless times over the last 164 years.

Mr. Stryver at Tellson's Bank

That means - as the gif at the top of this post demonstrates - that these illustrations have slowly been "translated" over time into dozens of distinct images - in ways as innocuous as a change in a shadow and as striking as a change in a character's facial expression.

The Spy's Funeral

These translations have happened in all sorts of ways over the development of printing technology - blemishes, xeroxing errors, low-quality or blurry scans, too much ink being used in printing, image compression, sometimes even actual tracing of the original illustrations! - and as interesting as they can be on their own, for someone determined to find the most accurate representation of Phiz's phenomenal work, they can be...phrustrating.

The Wine-shop

In fact, as a sidebar, the illustrations that I used for the Best Character Showdown bracket turned out to themselves be traces and not originals! I am Ashamed and disheartened! You could even say that I am yet another...

The Accomplices

accomplice in the mistranslation of Phiz's work!

The Sea Rises

Rest assured, though - although they are not from the monthly installments themselves (which as far as my research has gone do not seem to be anywhere on the Internet), these particular scans are sourced directly from an online scan at the Open Library project (contained within the Internet Archive) of the first edition of A Tale of Two Cities, itself also published in 1859.

Before the Prison Tribunal

I do wish that they hadn't been cropped the way that they have and that they were available in a (much) higher resolution, but as of now, they're the best representation of Phiz's original work that we netizens have!

The Knock at the Door

A Tale of Two Cities was the final novel that Phiz illustrated for Dickens - and marked the complicated ending to a twenty-three-year (yes) professional partnership between the author and illustrator - but his work here will mark a beautiful beginning to the long archiving project we will experience together here on this blog.

The Double Recognition

Throughout the work of this project, there will be quite a variety of sources being used - from direct scans by me to the two-tone abstractions of PDFs clearly not created for the purpose of storing image information - depending on the needs and availability of each edition.

After the Sentence

All of it goes to show the importance of accuracy and attention to detail in archiving art, which is itself an art form to be appreciated.

Hope you've enjoyed!

& the standard endnote for all posts in this series:

This post is intended to act as the start of a forum on the given illustrator, so if anyone has anything to add - requests to see certain drawings in higher definition (since Tumblr compresses images), corrections to factual errors, sources for better-quality versions of the illustrations, further reading, fun facts, any questions, or just general commentary - simply do so on this post, be it in a comment/tags or the replies!💫

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