Spoiled Prompts

No Game

Wherein what I violate is your consent…

No Game

I date a game designer. It’s wild.
— a lover (之)

I ask them if they’d like to help me practice my “no”s. Their “yes” is the yes toward a friend who is reheasing their lines. I invite: “play the No Game with me.” They say this would be fine. I do a little dance. I talk (discovering what the No Game might be).

Play My Game

I say: to play, you just have to say “No.”

About the Designer

At time of speaking, I don’t know what the No Game is. Like telling a story I might make up while driving, I’m just letting words through. My idea’s headwaters (where my ideas come from, wherever that actually is) - is, for me, a hole about one meter above and behind my head.

I hold faith the hole has always been there. This faith suspends me enough ideas come forth. When a mem[ ]ber of the community asks “where do [your] ideas come from,” I raise the fidelity of the ask, how I might reach for a cane to walk. And hear:

“Help me build a fairy home for my ideas.”

Sure^{👁️‍🗨️}. You might raise your arm in front of (then stretch your arms above) your head. Here, as though you cup the noon sun, you might then proceed to arch back in whatever way this reach finds to ask (for me, that way might be as though I adjust a dish of the Very Large variety toward the horizon behind me). When I reach a spot where something seems to seat, what is seated might be the place where my ideas come.

The Idea Orifice

I have a question for you (this is the beginning of the No Game):

Would you like me to continue to describe the idea orifice?

This is when you practice your “no” (might you like). How I play the No Game as it is discovered: I try and have the No (the No the person I am with attempts to say) feel like the number-one most difficult thing in existence the person I play with ever tries to say.

Perhaps the most universal question I might generate maximizing for my responder's desire to say Yes toward is (only to be playing a game where they must say No to keep that leaf^🍃 that is the No Game in the air), to the effect,

“Do you want me to make it all right?”

Any sort of selflessness incidentally finding the No in a position next to a loneliness only the center of the galaxy might know (of which the person is now left to compose). Plenty such moments exist for choosing; moments in the presence of the selfless thing - that question (or the space behind and above the head; or a comet or physics: or a greatest lonliness denied solitude from your own end of time).

Nothing, Cancelled

Cancel culture goes autophage, cancels nothing - spuermassive balck hole forms. All other black holes start peeing in resonance from the perfect grip: it’s stars! Warm. Oh product of relief in arrival, piss. Finally. (All is right.) Come:

As universal as I get the ask, today

To play No Game, your role (as response) is to say No to the above (to me making it all right). All is well, and you struggle. Boundary definition is difficult. Boundary work is difficult! Be it playing a game where you are tasked with a simple goal (say No - no matter the question); or writing haiku while also under great physical, spiritual, social, or emotional strain; or paying rent; or living for the benefit of the heart (of mystery, or a deity of your own invention).

Alongside doing the dishes and housework and taking kids to school and practicing hygiene, and learning a shared language, and rote counting, and the rest of the work we p[ ]rform for the benefit of community:

We are never paid for any of our boundary work.

And, unlike most of the listed examples, boundary work in fact ostricizes you from community; community will actively shame you for such work. It’s actually quite selfish of community, which is a fault community looks to work on.

The Youngest Game

Thinking up questions it is hard for you to say No to is symbiotic for me. The amount you struggle to say No tells me more about what it is you do and do not [struggle to say No to], so might recognize as tasteful. Essentially, you embody the hole above and behind my head; you leak information. Kink until proven otherwise, embodied.

In Western culture (I feel) the heart of The Oldest Game is transformation: ecosystemic power creep doubling as an apex generator. How a mathematician might go second so as to be guaranteed to win the game twenty-one.

Many systems exist teaching the oldest game; perhaps No Game may be considered The Youngest Game. As a game about believing ecosystems of non-consensual No’s into existence (“Will you eat from this tree?”), the Youngest Game dominates The Oldest Game by transforming into the most-awestriking thing to say No to:

Do you want to play The Oldest Game with me?

No comes in many shapes:

- Some are consen[ ]ual.
- Some are non-consen[ ]ual.
- All, always toward connection.

Connect With Me

Here are some questions you might say yes to, which are asked only in the faith that time developing (and saying) a No is taken. In time, may space be made to strengthen the No muscle.

• Would you like to gratitude journal with me?

• Would you like me to share tips I’ve developed for the No Game?

• Do you know what it’s like to say No?

• Will you ever know what it’s like to say No?

• May I word why this feels the way it does?

• Might this be wrestling?

• Do you want to sing to the river with me?

• Do you like feeding people?

• Can we play No Game again?

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👁️‍🗨️ https://cassette-witch.itch.io/100000year ↩

🍃 https://itch.io/profile/devourplural ↩

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More prompts at: https://devourplural.itch.io/1/devlog