Speck’s War Diary, Friday 12th July, approx. 3:20AM
Dear Diary,
Sometimes, it’s easy to get used to the comfort and luxury of our own homes. It makes sense, for the accessibility of materials within our abodes is truly ample. For example, with the click of a button, I could theoretically have a tuna and pineapple pizza, dripping wet with barbecue sauce, delivered straight to my door, with the preference of them sending their cutest delivery person*. With another click of a button, I could use my third free Amazon Prime trial to purchase 100 AA batteries, to refuel my sleek white Pro Controller, the electric toothbrush for my shiny teeth and me, and most importantly, my light-up Question Block, which, objectively statistically, accounts for 37% of my retained sanity whilst playing the vidya. And then, of course, there’s the big one – online gaming. By clicking the power button or taking the Switch out of the dock, I too can be getting back spammed on Mario Kart online by EATMYDUST47, or パイパー, or the collective efforts of Rozando la Kartastrophe, only for it to be jovially narrated by Sliver for thousands to jajaja at. But there’s one thing that’s… Missing from all that. A human side to it. It’s easy, when receiving that backspam, to assume that the other player is some kind of robot. Or reptile. Or some kind of robot-reptile hybrid. Basically, what I’m trying to say is that everyone who plays Mario Kart that isn’t you is MechaGodzilla.
It’s for this reason I decided to boldly step out of my household – then swiftly return, realising that two layers weren’t going to be needed, because cor blimey the UK has been warm recently – and then boldly step out of my household again, to attend Embrace the Change, where I learned that other Mario Kart players are not, in fact, MechaGodzillas. I won’t lie, when I first walked into the venue, I was a little nervous about how I would come across… Was I high enough of a skill level to be accepted? Were people going to be accepting of my quirky, introverted deportment? When were people going to notice the toilet paper stuck to my shoe? But thankfully, all of my fears were quelled, when Damian gave a rousing speech to commence the proceedings, bringing everyone onto the same page of embracing and enjoying the experience, regardless of the outcome. He also said Arcadia was a cool name for a team, which was sweet. I like Melee X too; the X makes it sound cool. And edgy. And exciting. And you could also re-read it to mean ten copies of Super Smash Bros. Wait, what was I talking about again?
Ah, yes, and then the doubles tournament got underway. I formed Team Majikoi** with long time-friend and former clown fiesta bot-lane partner, Abaraik/Mark. Our first round was effective enough, staying dedicated to our strategy of spamming literally every item we received immediately, and calling out bananas but still hitting them anyway. Our aim was simply to pass the first round with our dignities relatively intact, and, thankfully, the main goal was reached. We tried our best in the semi-final to exceed the expectations, but alas, we begun inting. I missed more boxes than Floyd Mayweather with carpel tunnel, and Mark decided to make close friends with the wall in Royal Raceway, which, in fairness, does sort of look like lots of Battenberg cakes smushed together. In the end, we crashed and burned to ten copies of Super Smash Bros.
With our doubles dreams dashed, it was time to focus on the main course of the event, the singles tournament. The first round was absolutely no pressure; I was only being recorded, had several fellow Arcadia members watching over my shoulder, and staff member Ceci playing on the same setup, all ready to brutally scrutinise every single poor line and item usage that would inevitably occur on my end, I assumed. I could feel my throat tighten, as if the word ‘CHOKE’ wasn’t already flashing as a giant metaphysical neon sign in my brain. Thankfully, I broke into the lead on Music Park and never got punished, and shouting ‘HI MUM!’ in regard to the recording made the people around me think I was just about stupid enough to forget about any of my misplays.
The semi-final proved to be truly terrifying; a very strong room in which any of the eight players could have made it through. For some reason, for this round, I sported the Lithuanian flag. Sadly, I know very little about the country, except that they turn up at Eurovision sometimes, and their main export is petroleum, making me think karting could be in their blood. Regardless, I embraced the change (cough) and went for it. The first half went solidly, with three out of four finishes on the podium, of which one of those was absolutely not achieved by a shock and a bullet in the two last item sets, and of which there is absolutely no video evidence to object otherwise. However, it was the second half that went extraordinarily well. The previous day, Arcadia members had been to an escape room called The Dentist, which we cleared with 23 seconds to spare. The Dentist, funnily enough, is our code name for Ribbon Road. Therefore, using the experience from the escape room, I found the clues quickly and escaped the pack, fending off drills, and securing my only first place finish of the round and… The crown (cough cough). It felt great achieving pole position in that room overall, and in joviality I rose for the Lithuanian national anthem:
But then I promptly sat back down, and waited patiently for the battle for all the marbles in the final round. If the last room wasn’t stacked enough, this round was literally seven studs charming the crowds, and me, the poindexter in the background, tripping over a chair and accidentally tackling the hottest girl in school, whilst simultaneously knocking the punch over onto my crotch. The one good thing about meeting in real life, however, is that you can picture everyone else naked to make yourself feel better… Sadly, this backfired, leaving me even more insecure. Regardless, onto the racing, and again, the first few races actually went real smoothlike, somehow pulling off more NISCs on Baby Park in that single race than I have NISCs on Shy Guy Falls ever, and arguably the calmest Section 3 on N64 Rainbow Road ever witnessed by a professional Mario Kart player. I found myself tied for 1st overall going into Race 5, only for screen sharer Teeples to complement it… Which would prove to trigger the events of my downfall. To be fair, I think I did set a record on Bone Dry Dunes… For a player to hit the off-road the quickest, somehow drifting off literally as Lakitu was still leaving the screen. The only race that went well in the second half was Tick Tock Clock, pulling off a slick banana snipe by complete accident (sorry, recipient of that – you know who you are…) and hoarding greens like an expensive grocer to lock onto a bronze finish. After that though, there were few saving graces, as the aforementioned studs upped their game hard, and I was slowly lowered into the pits of 7th place overall. Still, nothing to be mopey about – I was just happy to be there at all. And all credit to Jasmine for the win; I think I saw her on my screen for a grand total of maybe three seconds ever, going to show that the unseen karters are the deadliest.
Real talk, though… It’s been a few days since the event, and I’m already looking back at it and grinning, and I’m already pretty stoked for the future when another event inevitably happens off the foundation of this one. I wholeheartedly recommend you all to consider attending whatever the next event New Leaf think of next, because when you boil it down, it was just some pretty swell humans, playing a pretty swell racing video game, whilst creating pretty swell memories. So, all I have left to say is this: People whose setups we used for the tournament, don’t you dare delete my Mii. I’ll be back…
* Valentin, if you’re reading this – your eyes play me harder than World Friend plays doubles tournaments. Never change.
** If you have experienced this visual novel, please DM me, for we have much to discuss. Especially about Yukie. Yukie is best girl. You know what? I’ve changed my mind. Don’t DM me.