The Ladderland, by TS eLiot

The Ladderland, by T.S. eLiot




I. THE BURIAL OF THE D’S

NOVEMBER is the cruelest month, breeding
Dreams of championship glory, mixing
Top foreigners and total noobs, stirring
The hearts of nerds everywhere with one single star.
Proleague kept us warm, covering
The TL forums in forgetful matches, feeding
A little life with fingerbooms.
Premonition surprised us, coming over the internet
With a gust of snowflakes and a guitar solo; we stopped in our chairs,
And went on with no sunlight, into the video,
And drank nothing but red bull, and speculated for a week.
Ik ben helemaal niet Koreaans, ik kom uit Holland, een ware Nederlander.
And when we were younger, watching the emperor,
My friend, they took me out to a LAN,
And I was frightened. He said, Jian,
Jian, just build reavers, and so I did,
In the ridges of heartbreak, there you feel free.
I play, much of the night, and horror gate on occasion.

What are the templars that dark, what cannons grow
Out of this pylon rubish? Son of Auir,
You cannot say, or guess, for you know only
A heap of bloody zerglings, where the siege tank beats you into goo,
And the arbiter gives no shelter, the shield battery no relief,
And the dry energy no hope of recall. Only
There is invisibility under this sturdy ship,
(Come in under the invisibility of this sturdy ship),
And I will show you something different from either
Your templar by the bridge striding behind your army,
Or your templar at the ramp, rising to meld with your other;
I will show you an archon in a handful of white light.

De frisse wind waait
Naar het geboorteland;
Mijn Nederlander
Waar blijf je?

“You brought me to korea over a year ago;
They called me the last foreign hope.”
-- Yet when we came back, late, from the eSTRO
house,
Your apm higher, and your builds crisper, you could not
win, and our dreams failed, you were neither
In Korea nor out, and we knew nothing,
Looking out into the heart of terran, the silence.
Eenzaam en leeg is het eSTRO huis.

Mr. Krupnick, famous purveyor of cheese,
Had a disappointing WCG, nevertheless
Is known to be the wisest toss in Europe,
With a wicked set of special tactics. Here, said he,
Is your fate, the dreaded proxy three-gate,
(Those are the extra dragoons he made. Look!)
Here is an odd timing push, dashed your army upon the rocks,
The clever use of situations.
Here is the boy with fourteen years, and here the hours he has spent,
And here is the mighty Polish dragon, and the German,
Which is deadly, there are ling runbys up his sleeve,
Which we are forbidden to stop. I do not find
The Pulsating Star. Fear dts drops.
I see crowds of people, playing games endlessly.
Thank you. If you see dear Day[9],
Tell him I bring the bear semen myself:
One must be so careful these days.

Unreal nation,
Under the brown fog of a dark swarm,
A crowd crawled up the ladder, so many
I had not thought zealots had undone so many.
Nerd rage, long and constant, was expressed,
And each player fixes their eyes before their screen.
Crawled up the ladder and down the ladder,
To where Saint James Lampkin kept the hours
With a D- until the final stroke of time.
There I saw one I knew, and stopped him, crying ‘Combat_Ex!
‘You who were with me in the bowels of the internet!
‘Those videos you planted last year on your channel,
‘Have you achieved fame and fortune yet? How about next year?
‘Or has the sudden Chill disturbed your bed?
‘Oh keep your ladder abuse far hence, that’s friend to star craft,
‘Or with our proxy hatches we’ll scoop you out again!
‘ You! Hypocrite lecteur! - mon sembladble,- mondragon!


II. A GAME OF C's

THE chair the leader sat in, like an office chair,
Grew hotter and hotter, where the cushion
Held up by the bodies of the defeated
From which a timid noob peeped out
(Another hid his keyboard behind his back)
Caught on fire from the pressure of the hundred headed hydra
Putting heat upon the chair as
The cream of the crop rose to meet it,
From ivory keyboards typed in rich profusion;
In rooms of wires and shining monitors
Unslept, lurked his strange dreams of glory
Pungent, powdered, or team liquid-excited, trembling,
And drowned in the sea of TSL-ers; stirred by the premonition
That freshened the foreigner scene, these ascended
In fattening the prolonged hype-flames,
Flung their bodies onto the pyre,
Stirring the waves of indifference.
Mass gaming fed with enthusiasm
Burned red, then yellow, then blue, framed by the green brick,
In which great light, a hundred minnows swam.
Below the equine mantel was displayed
As though a window gave upon the mythic scene
The charge of Hot-Bid, by the cry of the barbaric braavosian
So gallantly states; yet there the howler monkey
Filled all the jungle with inviolable voice
And still we cried, and still the world pursues,
“Go, Go, Go!” to anxious ears.
And other withered stumps of time
Were told upon the forums; staring forms
Leaned out against the current, to the cheering crowd outside.
Running footsteps fell hard upon the street
Under the torchlight, under the banner there,
Spread out in light blue and white
The spade, the club, now nothing is still.

‘My apm is bad to-night. Yes, bad. Stay with me.
‘Play with me. Why do you never answer? Play.
‘Who are you thinking of playing? What match-up? What?
‘I never know who you are playing. Play.

I think we are in the minus’s alley
Where the dead men lost their expansions.

‘What is that noise?’
Your base is under attack.
‘What is that noise now? What are the zerglings doing?’
Loss again loss.
‘Do
‘You lose everything? Do you improve nothing? Do you replay
‘Nothing?’
I remember
Those are mutas that were his larva.
‘Are you alive, or not? Is there nothing in your base?’
But
O O O O that XiaOzI’ian multitask-
It’s so elegant
So intelligent
‘What shall I do now? What shall I do?’
‘I shall rush out as I am, and walk into his base
‘With six marines and two medics. What shall he do?
‘What shall we ever do?’
The base is at ten.
And he hasn’t built sunkens.
And he still kills my attack,
With lidless zerglings, waiting for my feeble knock upon his door.

When I got rocked, I said-
I didn’t mince my words, I said to myself,
I WANT TO PLAY OCTZERG NEXT
Now he’s asking for a game, play smarly.
He’ll want to know what you’ve done with the resources you’ve mined
To get yourself some marines. You did, I built them.
You took them all out, October, and get a nice win,
He said, I swear, come visit Macedonia any time!
And making zerglings is easy, I said, and think of poor Greg,
He has been in Korea one and half years, he wants to get standard play
And if you don’t give it to him, there’s others will, I said.
Oh is there, he said, Making zerglings is easy, I said.
Then I’ll know what to do, he said, and killed me with mutas.
I WANT TO PLAY LIMBIC NEXT
If you can’t make it, we can’t play it, he said.
Others can make games and choose if they want to play.
But I can’t, and it won’t be for lack of trying
You ought to be ashamed, I think to have such an antique.
(And it’s less than a year old.)
I can’t help it, and I pull a funny face,
It’s them games I played, I lost them all, I said.
(I’ve played five already, and nearly died in all five.)
A Swede said it would be alright, but I’ve never been the same.
You are a proper Scandinavian, I said.
Well, if the ladder won’t leave you alone, there it is, I said,
What if you play well, and don’t get wins?
I WANT TO PLAY SOMEONE NEXT
Well, that was Saturday morning, I was back, they had a hot seat,
And they asked me in to play, to get the beauty of it hot-
I WANT TO PLAY
I WANT TO
Goodnight Computer. Goodnight Ladder. Goodnight Moon. Goonight
Ta ta. Goodnight. Goonight.
Good night, noobies, good night, sweet noobies, good night and go, go, go.


III. THE FIREBAT SERMON

THE ladder’s ceiling is broken; the last pretenders of B
Clutch and sink into the second tier. The ghosts
Cross the ash world, unheard. The failed are departed.
Sweet games, play rabidly, till we end.
The ladder bears no empty strategies, shoddy execution,
Mis-micro, slain scouts, unblocked ramps,
Or other testimony of exhausted winter nights. The failed are departed.
And their friends, the chastised cheesers of ICCup ranks;
Departed, have left no mark.
By the rungs of the ladder I sat down and wept…
Sweet games, play rabidly till we end,
Sweet games, play rabidly, for I play not well or long.
But before me in a cold blast I see
The squelch of drones, and blue goon goo spread from map to map.

A terran rolled over the space platform
Pushing it’s decisive bulk over the map
While I was watching the dull standings thread
On a winter evening on my laptop
Musing upon the game my wraiths’ wreck
And on the battle my army’s death before that.
Red spots pinpointed on the forlorn ground
And bones nowhere to be found,
Rattled by the terran’s push only, game to game
But before me from time to time I see
The arrows change their hues, which shall bring
Fields to Kroon in the American morning.
O the moon shone bright on Mr. Fields
And on his macro
They squash their opponents with brute force
And toi have, teh sound of every1 whining in the thread!

Click click click
Tap tap tap tap tap tap
So quickly contrl’d
Fields

Unreal community
Under the brown fog of a dark swarm
Mr. Sun Yi, the surprise swarm
Unstopped, with a box full of tricks
f.9.1. China: laddered on sight
Asked us with gleaming eyes
To play the tournament outside of China
Followed by a weekend in Phuket with his winnings.

At the middle hour, when the blues and greens
Head ever upward from the cutoff, when the gaming engine waits
Like a unhatched lurker egg, throbbing waiting,
I rekrul, though insane, throbbing between two lives,
Spiting acid with deadly spines, can see
At the middle hour, the hours are closer
Than before, that bring us forty eight gamers home from the ladder,
The terranist home at the middle, clears out the zealots, sets
His contain, and lays out the covert ops.
In another game, perilously over-expanded
The overminder extinguishes the sun’s rays
Piles zerglings under swarm (with guardians above)
To meet zealots, dragoons, archons, and storming templars.
I Legionnaire, old man with wrinkled skills
Perceived the scene, and foretold the rest-
I too decided to play the ladder.
He, the young boy, long expected, arrives
A small red box’d player, with one good streak,
One over the low on whom the greats sit
As a face of white-ra to an artsy photo.
The time is now precious, as we know,
The grace period is ended, they are fast and smart,
Endeavors to climb through abuse
Which still are reported, and undesired
Are flushed and decided, all banned at once.
Truly great players encounter no defense;
Their vanity requires no response,
And makes a welcome of noobish strategies.
(And I Hot_Bid have fore suffered all
Enacted on this same ladder or star league;
I who have sat by this league below the surface
And walked among the lowest of the nongmin trolls.)
Bestows one final wonderful week and a half,
And we rush our way, finding the A ranks unlit…

We turn and look a moment in the thread,
Hardly aware of the latest movement;
Our brain allows one half-formed thought to pass:
‘This is hardly even done, and people are playing as if it’s almost over.’
When in passing we stoop to check and
Hang around the chart again, alone
We brush the strand of hair on the keyboard,
And look for improvements in records.

‘Advokate crept by me upon the ladder’
And along the hundreds, up the final stretch.
O Ladder ladder, I can sometime see
Beside a forum post in the standings thread ,
The pleasant whining of a 14 year old
And a clatter and a chatter from within
Where mods lounge at noon: where the heading
Of Pokerstrategy.com hold
Inexplicable splendor of liquidian white and blue.

The ladder sweats
Blood and goo
The players drift
With the turning tide
Flag icons
Vibrant
To the left, complementing the name
The race icons
Question marks
Up the A ranks
Past Morrow, Sen
Dimagaga aga
DIMAGA agagaga

Juan and Bojan
Among others
The groups being formed
A quiet line
Fading to blue
The brisk swell
Rippled all spots
Upheval
Carried upladder
The ingame music
Shut off
Mananana ana
MaNa anananana

‘Contests and dusty replays.
High apm killed me. A protoss and a zerg
Undid me. By Pusan I raised my game
Supine to my glowing tablet.’
‘My fingers are at the keys, and my other hand
At my mouse. After the game
I wept. I promised “a new start”.
I made no more comments. What should I do better?’
‘Macro.
I cannot execute
Nothing with nothing.
The broken dreams of sweaty palms.
My skills humble people who expect
Nothing.’
Oh well.

To the forums then I came

Writing writing writing writing
O Manifesto7 Thou not bannest me out
O Manifesto7 Thou not bannest

Writing


IV. DRAMA BY 12 NEXUS

GREGORY the Korean, a morrow past A+
Ignored the cry of foreign fans, and the well of hope
And the profit and loss.
A current under the forums
Picked his writings with flaming. As he hemmed and hawed
He passed backwards the stages of his age and youth
Entering the threads.
Outofcontrol
O you who flame the protoss and look to Koreanward,
Consider NonY, who was once handsome and tall as you.


V. WHAT THE LADDER SAID

AFTER the screen light white on sweaty faces
After the awkward silence in the op TSL
After the agony in sub-qualification places
The shouting and crying
Points and place and match-lists
Of storm and swarm over distant mountains
He who was in is now out
We who were watching are no waiting
With little patience.

Here is no order but only numbers
Numbers and no order and the iron ladder
The ladder climbing above the top performers
Which are mountains of numbers without order
If there were order, we should stop and think
Amongst the ladder one cannot stop or think
Games are won, and heads are in the sand
If there was only order amongst the numbers
Dead ladder hands of precarious grips that cannot hold
Here one can neither stand nor lie nor sit
There is not even safety in the upper reaches
But dry sterile numbers without order
There is not even solitude in the upper reaches
But red sullen faces sneer and snarl
From behind much-tapped keyboards
If there were order
And no numbers
If there were numbers
And also order
And order
An arbiter
An arbiter among the greats
If there were the hand of sanity only
Not the ladder
And players dodging
But the hand of sanity over a list
Where the hermit-nerd ranks on the paper
IdrA, Ret, Ra, Ret, Ra, IdrA, Ra, Ret
But there is no order.

Who is the one who loses to you?
When I count, there are only you and your opponent together
But when I look close up at the entries
There is always the same address losing quickly to you
Gliding wrapt in a different flag, hooded
I do not know whether a friend or stranger
— But who is that on the losing side of you?

What is that sound high in the air
Murmur of uneasy admiration
Who are those hooded hordes swarming
Over endless threads, stumbling in the cracked logic
Ringed by the bleak horizon only
What is the tournament over the mountains
Cracks and reforms and bursts in the periwinkle layout
Falling heroes
Yosh, Sarens, Advokate
ReasoN, DIMAGA
Unreal

An admin drew his black mark out
And wiped cheats of that ladder
And the community with disbelieving faces in the periwinkle layout
Nodded, and typed angrily
And crawled head downward down a blackened path
And upside down in air were heroes
Rolling conspirators, that kept the points
And numbers lie out of stricken match-lists and silent threads.

In this shining hole on the internet
In the screen light, the threads are crying
Over the tumbled graves, about the forums
There is the empty forums, only the cheater’s home.
It has no windows, and the door swings
BM can harm no one.
Only a sign stood on the rooftree
Oh no, oh no, oh no
In a flash of lighting. Then a sodden gust
Bringing more souls.

Hearts were sunken, and the excited creep
Waited for nourishment, while the black clouds
Sailed far distant, likely over Rekrul
The forum crouched, humped in dismay
Then spoke the thunder
GL
Friends; what have we given?
My friend, blood shaking my heart
That awful daring of a moment’s weakness
Which an backlash of anger can never retract
By this, and this only, we have existed
Which is not to be found in our obituaries
Of in memories draped by the beneficent bot
Or under dreams broken by the twelfth nexus
In our empty rooms
HF
Listen; I have heard the bracket
Fill in the tree once, and play once only
We think of the bracket, each in his spot
Thinking of the games, each confirms a champion
Only at nightfall, can disheartening disqualifications
Revive from now on, a battered dream
GG
Awake; The forum responded
Slowly, to the hand expert with mouse and key
The sea was never calm, or else your heart wouldn’t have responded
Quickly, when invited, beating obedient
To thrilling dreams

I sat at my screen
Typing, with the ladder behind me
Shall I at least set my scores in order?

TSL is happening, TSL is happening

Uoy now tuohtiw gniod gnihtyna.
Nehw llahs I eb eht ngierof awjnob— O ladder ladder
Eht ecnirp fo diuqil ot eht pot reddal
These dreams I have stored against my words
Why then It’ll fit you. HotBid’s mad again.
Good Luck, Have Fun, Good Game.

Ladder, Ladder, Ladder.

***

~ TS eLiot.