Microstory 2259: Hello, KC Metro

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If you’re a national or international reader, you may not have heard of a TV show called Hello, KC Metro. In this region, we have a local television station that focuses on local programming. It includes the weather, news, documentaries, and syndicated scripted series that feature known Kansas City natives. For five hours from 7:00 to 12:00 every weekday morning, a talk show featuring a variety of hosts and guests discuss all sorts of topics. If you’ve ever done anything noteworthy in the area, or are from the area, chances are you’ve made an appearance in one form or another. They’ve asked me to be on many times, but I’m not great in front of the camera, so I’ve always respectfully declined. Even local content creators have their stuff shown sometimes without them actually being present in the studio, and they’ve read my social posts on there without me having to be involved directly. If you want your story to be seen by the highest number of people, you’re gonna want to get yourself on the program between 7:30 and 8:30 central. This is after people have woken up for work, but before they’ve actually left for work. Of course, people work at different times, but 9:00 to 15:00 is kind of standard. For the show, 11:30 to noon is a decent time to be on too, because people might watch it during their lunch break, but that’s a lot less standardized. You probably see where I’m going with this. Dutch isn’t much for writing, so he doesn’t have his own blog, but people are really interested in hearing his tales of interdimensional travel, so he agreed to go on Hello, KC Metro, where he spoke with host, Cosmina Branković for nearly forty-five minutes this morning. He talked about what he was up to in Stoutverse, even the things he did that he wasn’t super proud of. I won’t get into that here, because it’s 2024, so you can watch the whole thing online. I know that it was hard for him to go into all that. He wasn’t being tormented or abused, but it wasn’t all fun and games either. I’m very proud of him for being honest about his part in what those people wanted to do with something that he could not control. I know none of that makes any sense if you didn’t see it, so I guess you’re just going to have to go hear for yourselves.

Microstory 1751: Spirit of the Lynx

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When I was a boy, I had no identity. All of my classmates had some kind of online persona, which represented who they were, and what they enjoyed. Their usernames reflected these attributes, be it a love for football, or all things Star Wars. I didn’t care about anything in particular, or have any special way of setting myself apart from others. I suppose that’s what it really comes down to, that I was not special. Ya know, I liked watching the news, and not because I wanted to become a reporter when I was older, but I’ve always been more interested in the goingson of real life than fiction, or other forms of entertainment. But NewsBoy1994 seemed like a dumb and boring name that I didn’t want to use. One day, I was flipping through my favorite news and documentary channels, hoping to learn something new, when I came across a nature show about the lynx, and it gave me an idea. Maybe I am a lynx. And not because of the animal’s particular behavior, or the way that they look. Maybe it’s just arbitrary. I could call it my spirit animal, and claim to others that I just really like lynxes. I felt like a fraud, but no one else appeared to have any problem with it. He likes lynxes. Whatever, doesn’t matter to me. I didn’t get ridiculed or questioned, and everything went well. Over time, these creative online identities faded away. Social media allowed you to connect directly to your friends and contacts, but also just say things for the world to absorb at will. Real life has become trendy. People can read your posts if they want to, and on their own time. Many are using real identities now, because for most, it’s the closest we’ll get to fame, and we don’t want to hide ourselves under a layer of anonymity. Our friends can’t find us if they don’t know enough about us. Even then, is PermaLynx94 the guy you’re looking for, or some random stranger who also happens to like lynxes?

I shed my lynx identity, and moved on with my life. It was a lot easier for me than for others, I imagine. Some still probably weren’t too butthurt about it, since they were no longer so obsessed with the pastimes of their youth, and were glad to grow up. I didn’t care at all, because I never really cared about lynxes. It’s probably better now that people have to look deeper than my name if they want to know who I am. I got into hiking, which is something I never thought I would do. I probably would have tried to figure out some kind of clever walking pun back in the day if I had realized who I was at a younger age. I still like the news, and don’t care for fiction. I don’t have a problem with it on principle, but I watch Star Wars, and just don’t feel a damn thing for those people. This week, I’m backpacking alone in the woods, in the freezing cold of Canada. This is where I find my zen, away from people, and all of their noises. Things are going fine until I slip on a wet rock, and over the edge of the cliff. I hang onto a root, just hoping it doesn’t give. The drop is bout about six meters down, so I’ll live, but I’ll break bones, and not be able to leave. I have to find a way to lift myself up. Now I wish I had once identified as PullupDude69. As I’m hanging there, mere moments from a slow death, a lynx trots up and stares down at me. We study each other’s eyes, and don’t move a muscle. Suddenly, I’m no longer on the brink, but in some kind of tranquil and balanced serenityscape. We watch each other for an eternity, and then my spirit animal graciously provides me with the strength I need to pull myself up, and survive.

Microstory 1653: Flipsides

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Not all of the dichotomies from Flipverse were bad, or hostile, or violent. There was one in particular that was pretty innocuous. It wasn’t without its controversies, but it was created with the best of intentions, and designed just to be fun and entertaining. They called it Flipsides, and it was a reality show that featured a tournament style competition, which pitted two different types of people against each other. Every season was about two somewhat opposing lifestyles, if only superficially. The first, for instance, was city-dwellers against rural-dwellers. The second season was athletes versus scholars. You might imagine the criticism that the producers endured over the years—accusations of playing into stereotypes—but for the most part, it did okay. It lasted for eleven seasons, and mostly only ended because of other social changes that were going on in the world at the time, which made pursuing any entertainment endeavor difficult. The contests were varied. They took place in different locales, all over the world, and no specific contest was ever repeated. Some were in swamps, others in the mountains, and they even went into orbit around the planet. The audience would vote on various things, such as which contestants would compete in which location. Anything could happen, including the rules being changed mid-game, just to make things more interesting, but no one was ever given an unfair advantage, unless they earned it in some other way. Many tuned in, not just for the competition itself, but the drama that surrounded the contestants. How they lived together during the season, even after people were eliminated, was an important aspect of the social experiment; perhaps most important. There were group challenges, and bonus challenges, and these led to secret advantages, or better accommodations, which could result in social complications. People fell in love, and fell out of love, and had fights, and were occasionally kicked off for causing too many problems, or quit. The impact of the show went beyond the broadcast itself. Many contestants were elevated from it, and started getting noticed for the other things they did in their life. The final season spawned a documentary, where some of the most favored contestants were followed around in their daily lives, as they kept in contact with each other. While proper physics of Flipverse always had a little bit of scifi stuff going on with it, it was actually the leads of the docuseries that uncovered until then unknown secrets of the cosmos, and changed the course of history for the entire world.