but i made a choice twelve hours ago that locked me out of your questline. i don’t even like this
game, but i want all the trophies so it feels like i’ve won. if i can’t like something then i have to
be better than it. plus you’re so sexy and i want to see you in tights. i want to see you scraped up
in a torn shirt and jeans, assets stressing the verts your coder gave you. (it’s rebellious for me to
want this because you are a man. if you were a woman it would just be fucked up.) i could go
back to an old save, make a different choice, grow to understand and love you, be rewarded with
your anti-aliased bulges wrapped in denim, pulsing idly. look, i know if you were real that you’d
be straight. but you were obfuscated, blank-slated by committee so i’d buy the DLC. i want to
unlock your c ostume that’s just the woman’s costume but on your body. i think it’s supposed to
be a joke, but most things i like are a joke. i think i want you to be embarrassed that i want you.
like you weren’t programmed for it, like i am forcing you to wear this or do that. i am queering
you and this is wrong of me. i want to wring your code til joy comes out. you are everyone who
never wanted to unlock all my additional costumes. i want to count. i want to be played with. i
want to be forced beyond my flawed desire by someone new in a better utopia. i am going back
to my old save. i am going to brute-force the right choices. i am going to make you mine but
completely. i am going to get a trophy.

IAN MARTIN is a writer, designer, and recipient of the 2017 Worst Person Of The Year award. IAN’s writing has appeared recently in ottawater, Cypress, The Wild Literary Magazine, SURFACES.cx, and release any words stuck inside you II. IAN has published five chapbooks, most recently I DON’T TRUST SKINNY PEOPLE (Ghost City Press, 2020). You can find more at www.ian-martin.net.

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