Letters from the Front: The Geek Riots of 2017

In 2017, a series of five terrible video game movies over the course of the summer sparked geek riots all across the country. For two weeks, the battles raged on. The following is a letter recovered just after that war, giving us a unique insight into the minds and hearts of the soldiers in the trenches.

Dear Mom and Dad,

Times are tough here in Florida, but I have never regretted my decision to serve. The hot sun beats down upon us–such sun as I have never before seen! My skin feels as if it were aflame. How I miss your dark, dank basement where I have lived for many a year. And the rations are less than desirable these days–a man can only sate his hunger with year-old Pocky and flat Ramune for so long. The marble thingy in the bottle isn’t even amusing anymore, and the sound of it no longer conjures up images of Abenobashi. I tell you, I have never had more appreciation for the hospitality you have shown me over the past 36 years than I do right now.

But even as we have captured Florida, I wonder if we are truly bringing change. Already the leaders of the 13th Otaku Guard Squad have started to go mad with power. One Captain Dodd was given a representative seat in the state house, and has already proclaimed himself Hokage of Dade County. As a symbolic gesture, he even hung a man arguing that subtitled was the only true way to watch anime. Such arrogance and infighting! It cannot bode well for our future here.

Even more disturbing, his first act was to rename Miami to “Neo-Miami.” And that is not the worst of it. In an act that fully leaves his sanity in question, he even introduced legislation to ban Sakura. Sakura! Now, granted, she didn’t really do anything in the Naruto Thesearchformoremoney series except buy new shoes, but word from Japan is that she’s actually useful in Naruto We’renotevenfriggingtryinganymore.

No, really. They mean it this time.

But that is not the only thing that troubles my heart. Our techs have begun work on a giant robot militia that could secure victory–but, if used improperly, could spark a civil war the likes of which has never been seen. I am glad that the fight would be over that much sooner, but had you watched even a single Gundam series, you might comprehend the sheer horror that secretly underlies my joy. Thankfully, progress on the mechs has been slow, as the only mechanical experience our techs have has either involved scale models or Lego Mindstorms.

Our squad is soon to move again, for our enemies begin to surround us. I fear the tighter our grip on Florida as a whole becomes, the more counties will slip through our fingers–not unlike the Empire’s grip on the galaxy in Star Wars. I cannot write more now, but as soon as we set up camp again, you can be certain that I will tell you everything.

Your son,

Frank