24 July, Online
Flickering lights, stealth shadows, grainy textures. Snowy mountains, rusted metal, and dilapidated compounds – Metal Gear Solid has turned on millions. In this episode, writer Théo Casciani slips between reality and fiction, creeps into Hideo Kojima’s gaming universe to explore lust as a narrative red herring, designed to entice but ultimately subverted by blunt emotions. What happens when the body you desire is coded? When the story you’re playing begins to play you back? Heavy breathing. Footsteps echoing. Like the infiltration missions at its core, Théo seeps through his own desires, and how Hideo Kojima's objectified fantasy becomes a mirror — for transformation, for queerness, for the quiet longing of escape.
Written by Théo Casciani. Translated into English by Gabriel René Franjou. Sound clips by Kazumichi Komatsu. Introduction and outro voiced by Johnny Vivash. Editing and sound design by Tobias Withers. Curated by Justine Gensse. Produced by the Extra Extra team.