Page 50 of Looking for Group

Alexis: In my experience, this always happens to someone during a game of Arkham Horror.

That might be why I’ve pivoted almost exclusively to the card game, which has been one of my favourite board games (even if it’s technically cards) for a long time.

I do have warm student memories of Arkham Horror, though.

When I wasn’t the one asleep on the table.

4. Paragraph begins with: He’d had the foresight to book a table in advance, which turned out to be a good thing because it was a Saturday night and the place was packed.

Alexis: I can’t quite remember why I thought A Canticle for Leibowitz was the thing that someone like Kit would be reading, but it still feels right to me.

I think he’s also a big fan of Connie Willis and Becky Chambers, but I also don’t think he’s one of those readers who has to be reading the latest thing.

5. Paragraph begins with: They trooped in, and Drew gave his name to the waiter.

Alexis: As has been well-established, I enjoy writing about food and food-experiences in my romances.

I think because I’m usually writing about characters who are a little older, or who have developed a touch more sophistication in one way or another (Toby Finch, for example, in For Real is also nineteen, but, being a foodie and having been raised by an eccentric artist, he’s entirely at his ease in relatively prestigious settings, like Michelin-starred restaurants and Oxford colleges), I continue to find the mystique of Pizza Express in this scene deeply charming.

Like, it takes me back to feeling young and outclassed by rather quotidian aspects of adulthood—like wine lists and whether to order a starter.

6. Paragraph begins with: “Oh, it’s amazing.”

Alexis: Any similarities between Greyhallow Hall and Karazhan are of course purely coincidental.

7. Paragraph begins with: Drew wasn’t sure what to make of that.

Alexis: I find Drew’s friend-related anxiety very resonant of being young in a certain way.

It seemed very important to me at university to be seen to have friends, and for those friends to be both abundant and cool.

Now, of course, I’m old enough not to give any fucks about any of that.

I’m not Jay Gatsby. And the only thing that matters to me about my friends is that we care about each other.

8. Paragraph begins with: “I think you were right,” said Kit.

Alexis: I do think Pizza Express dough balls are disproportionately nice compared to everything else at Pizza Express.

9. Paragraph begins with: Drew nearly said, Haven’t you got any friends your own age? but realised at the last minute that it was probably the worst thing he could possibly say.

Alexis: ARRRGGHHH.

To be fair, this hurt a bit at the time but now it really stings.

Although I will add that I do think one of the interesting and important things about the people you meet through virtual spaces is that they’re not bound by context and proximity in the same way as, say, people you meet at school or university or in your home town.

Obviously both have value in their different ways, but I think there can be something special in getting to know someone you’d never have met under any other circumstances.

10. Paragraph begins with: It wasn’t exactly a seamless transition, but Kit seemed to go with it.

Alexis: Okay, this is a legit reference to [Terestian’s Stranglestaff] from A Certain Popular MMO (you can google if you like). It was, indeed, a staff with wavy tentacles on the end. Although it was for druid tanking, not healing.

11. Paragraph begins with: “We never worked it out.”

Alexis: Okay, so apparently I decided what this book really needed was a retrospective description of a raid encounter that was a mash-up of the opera event from Kara (cf.

A Certain Popular MMO) and the actual plot of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead .

I don’t know what I was thinking, but the sheer self-indulgence of it made me giggle so many years later.

12. Paragraph begins with: “When I first got here, I had this serious freak-out because I thought I was doing it wrong.”

Alexis: Obviously I’m well past university age (thank God), and maybe everything has changed, and everyone is cool and well-adjusted now. But I remember feeling like this and it seems at least slightly implausible to me that nobody else did or does.

13. Paragraph begins with: At some point, Kit rolled him over and straddled him, and Drew gazed hazily up at him.

Alexis: In some ways, I’m kind of glad I’ve written this book about being nineteen and falling in love for the first time, and how sweet and awkward that can be, and how it’s okay to take your time doing that.

Because my other book with a nineteen-year-old protagonist is For Real and that’s, um, quite intense on the kinky sex front.

Chalk this up as another “both are valid and I’m glad I’ve done both. ”

14. Paragraph begins with: Drew gave him another look.

Alexis: Oh my God. Do you remember when minimalist film posters were a thing?

15. Paragraph begins with: “No, it’s cool.”

Alexis: This made me feel old at the time, even though I think I was slightly closer to Kit and Drew than I was to Jacob age-wise.

We’ve actually now got to the point where gamers who were influenced by Planescape: Torment at a formative age are making games that (arguably) do what Torment did but better ( Disco Elysium is the go-to example here), but at the time this book was written Torment really had never been equalled.

Spoiler: I’m probably going to have more to say about Planescape: Torment in future comments.

16. Paragraph begins with: “Hang on, what’s the pillar?”

Alexis: I guess that took less time than I thought it would. This is a very specific shot-by-shot reaction to the actual opening cinematic of Planescape: Torment . For what it’s worth, the answers are:

1. It’s the memorial managed by Death-of-Names outside the Mortuary in the City of Sigil.

2. It’s Lothar’s collection of important skulls.

3. That’s Dionara. I believe the fire is a metaphor for, well, torment.

4. Yes.

5. We’re not a zombie. We’re kind of an immortal but we’re super scarred because we’ve been dying and coming back from death for a very, very long time.

6. Yes, it’s still Dionara. And yes, she’s definitely dead. It’s our fault, by the way.

7. Yes.

17. Paragraph begins with: “We met a guy in the hive called Mourns-For-Trees.”

Alexis: Torment is a really hard game to recommend to people, at least people who’ve grown up on a different style of game. But I do love it with all my heart. To the point that I can remember each of those obscure quests and each of the obscure characters who gave them to me.

Chapter Ten

1. Paragraph begins with: “New Mortal Kombat .”

Alexis: Fun fact, in an early version of this text, a copy editor corrected this to “ Mortal Combat ”, unaware that this was a real video game and that the reason it spells “combat” with a K is because it was released in the 1990s.

2. Paragraph begins with: Sanee was uncharacteristically quiet for a moment.

Alexis: Bjorn and Sanee are both examples of an archetype I tend to view as the “alpha nerd,” which isn’t an archetype that gets much play in the media.

They both, in their different ways, very strongly invest in being The Nerd Who Is In Charge Of The Nerd Stuff, whether that’s being The One Who Has Played the Game You’re Playing Longest or The One Who Organised The Late Night Chillathon and Impromptu Curly Fry Pig Out.

3. Paragraph begins with: “I dunno.”

Alexis: Gaming addiction is, of course, a complex topic.

But at the time I was writing this book, there was something of a moral panic about it.

Speaking personally, I’m very cautious about using medicalised language casually and I think people are very often quick to conflate “addiction” (or whatever other negative term is trending this week) with something they just don’t like or don’t understand.

I don’t want to minimise anybody’s struggles or difficulties, but in the specific case of this book, my intent was very much that Sanee is wrong here.

Drew spends a lot of time gaming at the moment because he has a new boyfriend, and Kit spends a lot of time gaming because that’s where all his friends are, but neither of them are actually displaying addictive behaviours.

Sanee falls back on the language of addiction here because he’s not willing to accept the validity of Drew and Kit’s choices.

4. Paragraph begins with: Drew let the laptop bag slump to the ground.

Alexis: Retrospectively, this is actually rather weaksauce. I’ve spent way more than a hundred and eleven hours in Skyrim . But, then again, I’ve also lived through a pandemic.

5. Paragraph begins with: Drew had always been quite proud that he was a gamer who wasn’t like gamers were supposed to be.

Alexis: This is a more common attitude amongst gamers than I think gamers like to admit.

6. Paragraph begins with: They took it a lot slower than Drew would have if he’d been playing alone, but it was honestly more fun this way.

Alexis: You should definitely buy a pet Lim-Lim. And you should definitely not get Marissa at the Brothel for Slaking Intellectual Lusts to turn it to stone. You monster. Piyo.

7. Paragraph begins with: They took it a lot slower than Drew would have if he’d been playing alone, but it was honestly more fun this way.

Alexis: You also should tell everyone your name is Adahn in at least one playthrough. Belief shapes the planes, Cutter.

8. Paragraph begins with: Sanee rose a little unsteadily to give his closing statement.