Mutant Pizza

PANEL ONE
The Oak Tree looks down fearfully in Dog’s direction, Cat and Dog chatting below.
DOG (OFF PANEL): People are very fear motivated.
CAT (OFF PANEL): That’s for sure. People are scared of my prowess on the digital battlefield. The pressure of total annihilation makes them do stupid things.

PANEL TWO
Dog is mostly laying down against the tree.
DOG: Existential Dread. When contemplating one’s mortality, people feel hopeless. That’s why dying in a video game is a big motivator, even when players know they’ll respawn.

PANEL THREE
Cat plays a game on their handheld, tongue sticking out — subconsciously demonstrating the high level of their video game focus.
CAT: That might be true in your so-called ‘real world’ but in the world of gaming, people aren’t afraid of death.
DOG (OFF PANEL): Then what are they afraid of?
CAT: Humiliation, obviously. Gamers are afraid of the dreaded ratio.

PANEL FOUR
The kill/death ratios of the clouds in the sky are somehow visible, not unlike a video game HUD or information screen. The Oak Tree silently judges a cloud with a poor ratio. A cloud with an impressive ratio shouts “C’mon man!” to which the unskilled cloud can only reply “Sorry :(” for their lackluster performance.
DOG (OFF PANEL): Ratio?
CAT (OFF PANEL): Kill-to-death, my ignorant friend. Gamers want more kills than deaths. They want to prove themselves.
DOG (OFF PANEL): So gamers aren’t afraid of the death part.
CAT (OFF PANEL): Of course not. Dying in games is just an easy way to communicate a negative condition. ‘Dying equals bad’ is a universal concept.

PANEL FIVE
Dog throws his arms out as if pleading for common decency.
DOG: You’re saying gamers are more concerned about looking bad at the game than actually dying? I find it hard to believe that peoples’ egos could be so fragile.

PANEL SIX
The naivety of this statement compels Cat to look up from their game, not an easy feat.

PANEL SEVEN
Cat turns her head, looking straight down the barrel at you, the viewer. (But she’s not ‘breaking the fourth wall,’ okay? I don’t want to get comments from anyone about Cat being another textbook ‘fourth wall breaking nihilist’ who has free reign to be a jerk simply because they are written to be ‘too smart for the world’s bullshit.’ They are clearly a ‘fourth wall breaking hedonist’ who has free reign to be a jerk for being too smart for the world’s bullshit. And to nip this in the bud: No, you are not like Cat.)
CAT: Have you met gamers?

THE END.