Dedicated to Neil LaBute

“Most people aren’t actors. That’s the real problem,” said Limbz.

“Huh?” said Linden.

“You heard what I said. There are two esoteric practices relevant to the act of cosplay: evocation and invocation,”

“Elaborate,”

“Invocation is adding an ego to the pre-existing one present in your body, right? Evocation is the creation of an entirely different ego,”

“Like tulpas?”

“Yeah, kinda. But these people are neither actor nor mystics. They seek to embody and yet they will always be a pale imitation of an ideal. There will always be an insincerity coupled with signifiers of their past identity. This is particularly evident with crossplaying,”

“I’d say women get an easier go of it than men. I mean, they’re all into pretty boys, right? Diabolik Lovers, Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka, Edward and Jacob, The Onceler, the cat from Animal Crossing: New Horizons¹, Amnesia², Dylan Minnette and Peter and Paul from Funny Games (2007). Just slap a binder on and you’re halfway there. Men, on the other hand, they gotta tuck and tape or get some special underwear. They gotta shave and pluck their eyebrows. They gotta get fake boobs that are realistic. You ever tried to get realistic fake boobs? They’re all too goddamned static, you know. They’re made of plastic. They ain’t got that anime jiggle,”

“Real boobs don’t have that anime jiggle,”

“Yeah, OK, but the point isn’t to be a real woman. It’s to be a symbol of a woman. An icon that represents ‘woman’,”

“You seem to know a lot about this. Also, what woman would wanna fuck Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka?”

“You’d be surprised,”

“Fair enough,”

“You ever find it depressing?”

“What?”

“All that effort and… sometimes it ain’t even successful,”

“They’re having fun. They don’t need your pity,”

“And yet still…”

“Cringe is a fact of life, Linden. Cringe is a fact of life. Do we not make ridiculous faces when we cry? Do newborn babies not look like pink lumps of coal? Does critically acclaimed Japanimation not cut corners on its budget? There is a reason why the masks of comedy and tragedy rest beside one another. Who are we to define what is cringe when to another it is all too real?”

“Aye, but does such a permissive mindset not pave the way for whiners, sycophants and simps? Come on, man. I dig the whole subjectivist mindset but there are times when one must simply hang one’s head in despair. Mind you, I take your point that perhaps now is not one of those times. Effort was taken to invoke (for that is the best we non-mystics can hope for with our costume changes) and just because it does not meet my lofty standards does not mean that it does not have the right to exist. And yet, something still feels amiss,”

“All will be well, friend. All will be well,”

“Where the fuck is Lope?”

The two friends looked hastily around the convention hall.

“Fuck. That fat autistic fuck. Fucking hell. Shite. Cum. Bastard. Bastarding fuck. Why do we let this shit happen? Look, let’s abandon the roly-poly fucktard. The little cum-basin. The anorexic wank. Too thin, too fat, an all-around waste of fucking space,” ejaculated Linden.

“Don’t hold back. Tell us how you really feel,” muttered Limbz.

“It always happens. We always miss the first panel. The first panel has the food. The first panel has the bitches. The first panel has the new American Dad episode³. And, frankly, I’m sick of missing out on the taste of hot dogs on little sticks, the feeling of writing my name on some woman I’ll never see again’s Supergirl outfit, the low static hum of mediocrity radiating from a fresh American Dad episode. Maybe I’m romanticising it. But still. I’m fucking annoyed,”

“I had a friend in woodworking class that said he had a tulpa. It took the form of an anime girl from some dumb-ass ecchi anime he liked⁴. Basically, he trained it to recite lines from the show and suck his dick. And, yes, you’re romanticising it,”

“Imagine a family dinner with a tulpa sucking your dick. Just going to town. Your mum asks you a question and all you can do is moan. Then, she gets on the licky blicky and you fucking nut on the underside of the dining room table,”

“I… don’t know what response you’d want from me regarding that scenario. I guess it’d be kinda awkward?”

“You’ve more permissive parents than mine, I’ll tell you that. They’d beat my ass. They’d hang me upside down, crucify me with the kitchenware⁵ and drip caster oil into my nostrils,”

“Who the fuck uses caster oil anymore?”

Lope strode into view. His legs were shaved. He wore prescription neutral glasses. Hair was in a bob. Sailor uniform with a grey pleated skirt. Hair clip. Diamond-studded Hello Kitty phone bouncing off his hips. His boobs had that anime jiggle. Were there typical biological signifiers of the male gender? Sure. Lope’s sharp chin had not vanished. His hips were neither female nor male. His eyebrows were tell-tale masculine⁶. But then, could such standards apply to symbol? Would you decry an ampersand for not looking male enough or female enough? Did Lope embody? That’s a big question. What can certainly be said, however, was that Linden and Limbz were surprised.

“Jesus, man. You must have shelled out cash money for that outfit,” said Linden, shocked out of his concern for the first panel.

Limbz adjusted to the new information quickly.

“Come, dude.” said Limbz, “First panel,”

“Yeah, you’re right,” said Linden hurriedly.

“Wasn’t that much money apart from the glasses and fake boobs. Hello Kitty phone was an heirloom. Dead cousin. On a lighter note, you guys know who I met just now?” said Lope, as he walked with the others to the overcrowded, sweaty queue.

“No. Who?” said Linden, desperate to make conversation and prove that he wasn’t uncomfortable.

“Dylan Minnette,” he said.

“Fuck. You jammy bastard. You know who I fucking met? Brendan Schaub. Brendan fucking Schaub,” said Limbz.

“Yeah. I was away getting CBD gummies and playing on the Hulk (2003) Strength-Testing Game. Even I fuckin’ hate that bastard,”

“That’s saying something⁷,” added Limbz.

“You’d be surprised,” said Lope.

“Don’t fucking remind me,” said Linden.

“Why’d you even watch that thing?” asked Limbz.

“People watch bad things now. It’s just what they do,”

“So people can be justified in their anger?” asked Lope.

“Something like that,”

And so our heroes piled into the opening panel. While the Con was certainly obscure, it attracted celebrities who wanted to feel down-to-earth (read: all of them) and so the punters were granted the greatest pleasure a pop culture obsessive could hope for: a snobbish sense of exclusivity and recognition from the celebrities they idolised.

“Nice fez. Eleventh doctor, right?” said Lope.

“No shit. It’s about to start, man. Then we can talk all about our costumes, alright?” said Linden pointedly.

The panel consisted of Lars Von Trier, Alex Winter, Michael Cera, Mary Harron and Neil LaBute. Linden approached the cheese and mayo-filled toothpick hot dogs. Lope gazed upon the discussion between great minds. Cera screened one of his short films. LaBute showed a few scenes from Nurse Betty and the 2010 Death at a Funeral remake. Winter also showed a few clips from Smosh: The Movie and Freaked. Limbz gazed downward at the tacky yellow and pink chequered floor.

A V-formation of bright lights descended upon the Earth. The apocalypse was at hand. Everyone died.

The artists were gone. Only the punters were left behind. The sky was blue and cloudless. The ceiling had been blown off.

“It’s less as if we have invoked the characters. It’s as if they have invoked us. The ideas give birth to us and then call us home,” whispered the vampire formerly known as Limbz.

The anime girl with no name was anxious over her new body. She felt herself and wept.

“I now have the likeness of Matt Smith.” said Linden, “I now have the likeness of Matt Smith pretending to be an alien. Except I am now that alien,”

The characters, icons, symbols and psychic indicators milled out of the barren conference hall struck dumb and silent, DAZED AND CONFUSED.

“I guess we go home,” said Matt Smith Alien.

The other two nodded silently.

They went home.

Linden found a blue post box occupying the location where his house used to be. Limbz found a mansion. Lope found a small pink cube with a Hello Kitty bed at the centre. Outside, Godzilla had an adult diaper and a bonnet and it really seemed like someone’s Deviantart fantasy. Fetishist turned object. Godzilla can’t find a mirror. Godzilla can’t even reach his dick.

Naturally, their parents being gone caused some distress. Lope had to deal with her new body. Linden and Limbz had to face the prospect of immortality. Thankfully, there were no innocent young women or vampire brothers in Limbz’s mansion. He was alone. The superheroes and villains joined together to form a kind of pillaging committee.

As Laito Sakamaki, Limbz’s catchphrase was “Little bitch.”

He was afraid of what would become of him as he began to embody the icon. The artists had been exploded and so were united under the one figure known only as The Artist. The world existed with or without The Artist. The only thing The Artist needed to say was “Let there be light” and the rest of it would run like clockwork. Laito/Limbz got a phone call. He was informed that if he wanted to die, he would need to go back in time, write the Bible and then get crucified. He accepted this task. It turned out that Jesus was, in fact, a vampire⁸.

As the clock struck eight, Laito/Limbz nailed his palms to the hour and minute hands.

“Why do you do this?” asked Linden of The Artist.

“Why do you even feel the need to be around?” he continued.

“A petty sense of ownership,” The Artist answered.

“Do you believe that art must be useful?” asked Linden/The Doctor.

“I believe that art can only serve as propaganda for the dominant system. It can only ever reinforce mainstream ideas. When it does not, it is branded as immoral. When I look at a work of art, I do not think in terms of right or wrong so much as understanding and non-understanding. Does it earnestly attempt to advance a theory and reckon with the consequences of such a theory? Does it represent reality in all of its contradictions? Is there an adequate discourse of ideas? These are the fundamental questions,” replied The Artist.

“Then the world doesn’t need you to guide it. If art is simply a toolkit, an instrument for provoking thought, then what room is there for moral improvement? In fact, your theory disparages the very idea of moral improvement! Don’t you get it? The world simply does not need you. Any fool could slap together a series of evocative images and call it a day. It takes a real man to actually develop his idea,”

“I believe that what I outlined are symptoms of a developed idea. But I get your point, I really do. There is no point in art. There are so many other things to guide humanity. So many more effective things,”

The Artist then flung himself off of the clock tower, falling past Limbz’s grotesque, rotting corpse.

“I just caused the personification of artistry to fucking kill himself.” said Linden, “Sweet!”

Limbz then wrote the entire Bible from memory.

After The Artist was killed, the fans were the only ones who could dictate what would happen. The inmates had taken over the asylum.

“At the end of the day, humans are entirely driven by their base desires. No man can sincerely desire that which contradicts with his fetish. You may consider that a bold statement to make, but I have never seen a piece of evidence that contradicts it,” said Linden to himself as he stood over Lope’s sleeping body.

On the cross, Limbz was drying up like a raisin in the sun. His lungs were coughing up black blood. Overlapping skin folds obscured his vision. And so, his hands had grown soft like a rotten fruit, causing him to fall from the clock tower. As he hit the ground, he realised that he could only ever taste death. He looked at his torn stigmata. He had been the foundation of an entire religion just to feel the absence of life. Limbz looked up as the clock struck midnight and at that exact moment the bell rang out, Linden began to grope Lope.

“God, this is so hot. Knowing that he is now submissive to my desires fills me with pleasure. Once, he was someone it would have been gay to dominate and make miserable. But now, I can assault with impunity. I love life. Boy, this bitch is a heavy sleeper. Imagine living in this room. No wonder she no longer believes in the world that surrounds us,” thought Linden as he caressed Lope’s body.

Meanwhile, Limbz came into contact with Jonah Hill.

“Hey, what’s up, dude? Are you Jonah Hill, creator of Allen Gregory and director of Mid90s?” asked Limbz.

“Sure,” said Jonah Hill, sipping a Coca-Cola Energy⁹.

“How do you deal with it?” asked Limbz.

“With what?”

“All this chaos. All these people who hate you. The diaper dinosaurs, the lecherous vampires, the outsider critics¹⁰,”

“It doesn’t matter. None of it matters. We’ll all be dead soon and I will have made my statement. I will contributed to this great collective unconscious,”

“Is there any inherent meaning to that?”

“My pear, there is no inherent meaning to anything in this world, especially now that The Artist is dead,”

“Could the artist rise again, like Jesus?”

“No, what the fuck are you talking about? He had a big enough ego as it is,”

“You’re right, Jonah,”

“I know I am. Anyway, I’ve got an appointment at Nineveh,”

Limbz decided to check on the friend that he had abandoned in his pursuit. He knocked on the door of the pink cube. No answer. He walked inside to see Linden on top of Lope. He ran to the bed to push Linden off of Lope’s body.

“Hang me now,” he giggled to himself, “for it cannot get as good as this,”

Lope woke up.

“Heavy fucking sleeper,” murmured Linden to himself.

“Why do you have your dick out?” inquired Lope.

“No reason,” said Linden, stuffing it back into his trousers.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

Limbz broke down crying.

“I’m sorry… I should have done something. I should have listened to you. I know I am the failed messiah. And yet you see two thieves before you. Please, I beg of you. Forgive us wretches. You were not obsessed with a piece of plastic. You were obsessed with a person. I was doused in irony and yet I looked down on others for it. I am scum. No friends can truly exist in this world and there is no hope of everything coming back to normal. The bombs were dropped, the ideas scattered like shrapnel. I can only hope that when we embody what we consciously failed at, we will be happy. The memories of who we were deleted. There was nothing waiting for us,” he said, sobbing profusely.

“I have no sympathy for you. You can compose a long speech and yet you know you meant none of it. You planned it out like a chess game,”

“This is the only way I know how to feel!”

“You don’t get a prize for being a decent person,”

“But what about Linden?”

“What about him?”

“He raped you!”

“I know. What did you think I was talking about. He’s gone. He was a freak and will always remain one. All I did was recede into being my fictional character. I created an identity from scratch while he violated me. That’s all that can be said,”

“So you admit to being Jesus?”

“I admit to being divine,”

“What’s your endgame here?”

“Cleaner toilets, the end of racism, the fall of Communism and for every child to have three square meals. Oh, and you can’t forget world peace. Thanks, Brett,”

“So that’s it? I’m the bad guy?”

“It’s not that I don’t empathise with your struggle and shit. I just don’t care anymore. I don’t care about the murder and the death and the legions of people designated as heroes,”

“But that’s stupid! The choice of the lesser of two evils is the most meaningful choice a person can make! The acknowledgement that the world is unjust! Don’t you see? It is childish to retreat into a world where there is a sympathetic character waiting for you?”

“Be that as it may, I’d rather Hello Kitty than Gantz,”

“You resent me. You resent me for being something you don’t like! Well, I don’t like moeshit too but I considered you important enough to feel guilty over! To check on! Why am I not given basic respect? Why can’t you just… not hate me? Maybe I plan everything I say out in these long, filmic monologues. But that’s where I learned how to relate to others! Maybe I have retreated from your life. But I did so out of ignorance, not malice! I know it’d be awkward if we started right away. I know I couldn’t do anything to stop him in the first place,”

Lope stared at Limbz for a moment and then rolled over in her bed.

“Goodnight, Limbz. I’m going to sleep now,”

Limbz stared at her for a moment before leaving.

As he walked out into the streets of Prague, the street empty of all life and movement apart from the traffic lights, Limbz wondered to himself: “Did I say something wrong?”

And as he walked, he noticed that he was melting. And as he walked, he noticed that he may have seen a woman carted out in a stretcher. And as he walked, he realised that he was standing below the apartment in which he hung himself. For a moment, he was sombre. But then he waved at his corpse. And his corpse waved back.

and a man said to him hey wanna come with me i would like to show you something and slavomír said sure that sounds great i know youre a serial killer but i dont care haha

1. Linden’s memory failed him. The cat’s name is Raymond.
2. The otome Visual Novel, not the first-person horror videogame.
3. For a while, the Comic Con in the town Linden, Lope and Limbz reside in has only received American Dad premieres. American Dad has so far been the only show desperate enough to send a new episode to such an obscure comic convention.
4. The anime in question was Photokano.
5. Forks through the palms make an ellipsis stigmata.
6. In other words, far too bushy and disordered.
7. Linden is fan of both the Joe Rogan Experience podcast and MMA. One could perhaps argue that a familiarity with those two subjects would make hatred of Schaub more likely, not less.
8. Jesus der Film AKA Jesusfilm (1986)
9. Every artist must sell out at some point, I guess.
10. Never a foundational work could cross the eyes of an internet critic. These are eyes that analyse movies, Chris? No-one is born with the capability to analyse such a complex medium such as film. No-one.