UNMAKING, UNMADE

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<center><div class="wrap"><div class="glitch" data-text="UNMAKING, UNMADE">UNMAKING, UNMADE</div><br><br></div>• [[START]] • <small><i>This game contains three Bitsy interludes; to play these, click within the iframe containing the Bitsy dialogue box and use the arrow keys or WASD to continue.</i></small></center>

<<audio "fog" fadein loop>><center><div class="contain"><div class="head">HERE WE ARE AGAIN</div><div class="psg">You don't remember recording the tape, but there it is, with its blank, peeling label, jammed halfway into the VCR: a thick lolling tongue to choke on. Ease it inside. Chew it up. The room around you and the world around your makeshift theater feel unreal. The only real things are the weight of the remote in your half-numb hand, the heaviness of the batteries inside, the divots between each button. <b>Press one.</b></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[❚❚|pause1]] [[►|play1]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">PAUSED</div><div class="psg">The VCR whirrs, teasing out the tape’s precious innards for you once more, pulling on lengths upon lengths of image and sound with indelible magnetism. It is ready for you again, waiting patiently to begin. Where else but at the beginning?<<set $pause1 to "true">></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[►|play1]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">PLAY</div><div class="psg">Familiar bars of static snap in and out of place as the picture comes into focus: a hunchbacked silhouette twitching against a distorted background<<if $pause1 is not "true">> too grainy to comprehend<</if>>. <<if $pause1 is "true">>In the burred, dithering grain of the image, you think you can almost make it out. It looks like some kind of strange nest.<</if>> The image cuts away.</div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[►|play2]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">REWIND</div><div class="psg">The image moves in reverse, stumbling back beyond the beginning. You have no use for the beginning any longer. You know it, beat by beat. You're looking for a hidden prologue, a secret kink in the spooling reel. </div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[⏮|play3]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">FAST-FORWARD</div><div class="psg">You've seen this before. Each movement memorized, the beginning no longer thrills you the way it once did, nor does the middle. Many times, you tore yourself away spent and shaking before the ending could begin, but you'll see it this time. Each harsh Kuleshov cut along the way is a knife inside you, sharp imagery twisting pleasurably. You cannot be patient any longer. Nothing is stopping you from making your own cut.</div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[⏭|play4]]</center>

<<cacheaudio "fog" "music/Dark Fog.mp3">> <<cacheaudio "blue" "music/Blue Sizzle.mp3">> <<cacheaudio "mind" "music/Mind Scrape.mp3">> <<set $pause1 to "false">><<set $pause2 to "false">><<set $pause3 to "false">><<set $pause4 to "false">><<set $pause5 to "false">>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">BEFORE</div><div class="psg"><<if $pause2 is "true">>You release it, and pale<</if>><<if $pause2 is not "true">>Pale<</if>> hands claw their way into being to clasp, funereal, over a concealed breast. Long fingers emerge from billowing sleeves. A flame flickers between them, cupped tenderly in its palms. The veiled figure drifts in serene nothingness. It does not advance or withdraw; it merely remains there, centered perfectly in the middle of the screen, breathing softly. The captive flame — without source, without fuel, without question — licks colorless light up its fingers.<<if $pause2 is "true">> Unseen eyes match the fervor of your gaze. You can feel it.<</if>></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[⏮|rw3]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">AFTER</div><div class="psg">The sound cuts out. <<if $pause3 is not "true">>It is so dark here, where you’ve shuttered yourself in with the blackout static.<</if>><<if $pause3 is "true">>You want to leave this depthless place, starved for air and sunlight. The throbbing static and the droning voiceless silence are contorting you inside.<</if>> Your hand clenches on the remote. A figure you have never seen before melts out from the darkness, solid black on a wide strip of light.</div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[⏭|ff3]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">BEFORE</div><div class="psg">A tearing sound inside the VCR, and the image onscreen blurs to static. The static sharpens — and something new is being born. </div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[❚❚|pause2]] [[⏮|rw2]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">AFTER</div><div class="psg">You shut your eyes tight, and when you open them again and release the button, minutes have passed in the space of seconds.</div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[❚❚|pause3]] [[⏭|ff2]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">PAUSED</div><div class="psg">You detain it there, frozen in front of you, as if by staring long enough you might see through the static afterbirth. Moving closer, you can make out the edges of a veil caught rippling over a shadowed figure in the dark stillness overtaking the screen. The veil parts with the press of a button.<<set $pause2 to "true">></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[►|rw2]]</center><<if $pause2 is not "true">><</if>>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">PAUSED</div><div class="psg">You have found something you can only dimly recollect. An empty room, uglier than you recall — more stark and unkind, liberated suddenly from the familiar grotesqueries that once appeared within, now bypassed in your haste. You cannot bear to linger here.<<set $pause3 to "true">></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[⏭|ff2]]</center>

<<audio "mind" fadeout>><<audio "blue" fadeout>><center><div class="wrap2"><div class="glitchsmall" data-text="CREDITS">CREDITS</div></div></center><div class="wrapper header"><center>UNMAKING, UNMADE <i>for sub-Q Magazine's LOVE Jam</i></center></div><div class="wrapper footer">• written by <a href="https://grimoirtua.itch.io/">Grim Curio</a> • bitsy by <a href="https://twitter.com/adamledoux">Adam Ledoux</a> • transparent sprites by <a href="https://twitter.com/seansleblanc">Sean S. LeBlanc</a> • image-to-bitsy <a href="https://ruin.itch.io">@synth_ruiner</a> • scripts by <a href="https://www.glorioustrainwrecks.com/node/5161">Leon Arnott</a> • glitch text by <a href="https://codepen.io/chasebank/pen/qZNLyx">Chase</a> • tested by Oliver • credits layout by <a href="https://codepen.io/daliannyvieira/">Dali</a> • music by <a href="https://incompetech.com">Kevin MacLeod</a> (<span style="font-size: 16px !important;"><a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/">©</a></span>) <small><small>CC BY 3.0: <i>"BLUE SIZZLE" "DARK FOG" "MIND SCRAPE"</i></small></small></div> <center><span class="w"><<click "WATCH AGAIN?">><<script>>state.restart();<</script>><</click>></span></center>

<<audio "fog" stop>><<audio "mind" fadein loop>><center><div class="contain"><div style="align:center"><iframe id="bit2b" src="bitsy/bit2b.html" style="border:none" height=512px width=512px></iframe></div></div> <center><div class="wrap2"><div class="glitchsmall" data-text="A FEVER">A FEVER</div></div> [[⏮|rw4]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">BEFORE</div><div class="psg">Your body aches sweetly, and you pull yourself forward toward the television’s glow until you can taste the static. Too close to see the figure clearly any longer, it becomes a gently swaying blur against your eyelashes. Tiny, remote muscles inside you that you have never felt before grow tense. Your pupils dilate. You cannot breathe. You open your mouth and the static pours in, across your tongue, spilling light on your bones. Light, diaphanous and soft like a lover’s touch. Light, like dawn. You do not remember the sun.</div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[❚❚|pause4]] [[⏮|rw5]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">BEFORE</div><div class="psg">The allure is too great. You do not mind the sores and wounds that might lurk beneath the veil. You would put your mouth to them, taste their filth, halt their blessing on your tongue to savor in the glow. The fire burns your numbness away, and you are full. <<if $pause4 is "true">>The pause button is still stuck, warped in place.<</if>><<if $pause4 is not "true">>You cannot pause now.<</if>></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[SO FULL|rw6]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">IS THIS NOT WHAT YOU WANTED</div><div class="psg">The button is stuck. No force nor fear nor fantasy will depress it.<<set $pause4 to "true">></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[⏮|rw5]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">UNMAKING</div><div class="psg">All at once, the flame ceases to flicker; the veil ceases to flutter; the figure ceases to breathe into your mouth. The screen crackles, skips — and then it emerges again, just as it was: your bespoke prologue.</div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[REPLAY]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">REPLAY</div><div class="psg">You will watch it again. <<timedinsert 1000ms>>And again. <<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 2000ms>>And again. <<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 3000ms>>And again.<<endtimedinsert>></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [img[images/screen2.gif]] <center><<timedinsert 5000ms>>[[CREDITS|credits]]<<endtimedinsert>></center><center><iframe src="/html/departureContent.html" style="width:150px;height:150px;padding:0;margin:0;display:block;border:none;overflow:hidden;"></iframe></center>

<<audio "fog" stop>><<audio "blue" fadein loop>><center><div class="contain"><div style="align:center"><iframe id="bit3b" src="bitsy/bit3b.html" style="border:none" height=512px width=512px></iframe></div> <center><div class="wrap2"><div class="glitchsmall" data-text="UNMAKE LOVE TO ME">UNMAKE LOVE TO ME</div></div> [[⏭|ff4]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">AFTER</div><div class="psg">The light is shocking. Your pupils constrict and your eyes water with pain, but you do not blink, at once mesmerized and undone by the piercing beam leveled at you from so close. It hovers in the air: a beacon, a warning. The uncleanliness of your desperation is sanitized in its harsh fluorescence. The buzzing of flies. The scent of decay. The hum of deliverance. There, there. Stop crying.</div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[❚❚|pause5]] [[⏭|ff5]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">IS THIS NOT WHAT YOU NEEDED</div><div class="psg">The button is stuck. No force nor fear nor fantasy will depress it.<<set $pause5 to "true">></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[⏭|ff5]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">AFTER</div><div class="psg">The love drains out of you. Reality sets in, a stab of illumination searing your mind with guilt before the figure turns and the screen is made formless and empty. <<if $pause4 is "true">>The pause button is still stuck, warped in place.<</if>><<if $pause4 is not "true">>You cannot pause now.<</if>> No more weird vagaries. No more reveries. Nothing else is left but to—</div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[EJECT]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">EJECT</div><div class="psg">Gutted, the tape emerges from the VCR. Its delicate innards rustle and creak as you try to free it.</div><div class="bd"></div></div> [[PULL]]</center>

<center><div class="contain"><div class="head">UNMADE</div><div class="psg">With one harsh tug, <<timedinsert 1000ms>>the <<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 2000ms>>sleek <<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 3000ms>>black <<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 4000ms>>tape <<endtimedinsert>><<timedinsert 5000ms>><h1>snaps</h1>.<<endtimedinsert>></div><div class="bd"></div></div> [img[images/screen2.gif]] <center><<timedinsert 7000ms>>[[CREDITS|credits]]<<endtimedinsert>></center> <center><iframe src="/html/departureContent.html" style="width:150px;height:150px;padding:0;margin:0;display:block;border:none;overflow:hidden;"></iframe></center>