Rockstar

Two Words. Read. It. It’s got illicit affairs, murder, hypocritical clergy, gas station robbery, and a metric ton of Rock ’n’ Roll references. The Guns N’ Roses lyrics that start the story off with a bang are a good indication of what’s to come. If you love ’80s rock, you’ll devour this story with glee.

If you’re like me—someone born in 2002 who mostly listens to rap and pop—give it a shot anyway, it may surprise you with its bodacious awesomeness! Outside of a couple of Nirvana and Queen albums, I’ve barely dipped my toes into the proverbial ocean of Rock ’n’ Roll, let alone explored the tidepools of its many subcultures.

Rock and Roll is very complex and multi-faceted. But that’s exactly what makes Rockstar such a compelling subject for a Choose Your Own Adventure (CYOA)—it’s not just a genre, but a cultural force, a global cornerstone for humanity as a whole, one that has shaped, warped, and inspired minds for generations. And this cultural zeitgeist is a fundamental force that spreads and pervades the entire story, even penetrating the last bastions of conformity and conventionality: the church and suburbia.

Ultimately, it’s truly a rock and roll world, and we’re all just vibing amid the ebbs and flows of the beat.

The writing is also very good, it’s crisp, oozes with coolness, and is very fun to read. Overall, Rockstar is a 8/8. It takes an interesting set of 3 diverging stories(church story, affair with student’s mom, gig at Norma’s tavern), and unites them all under the umbrella of Rock’n’Roll and unresolved parental trauma.

I can guarantee you’ll come out of it if not completely in awe, then at least with a healthy appreciation for Ninja’s writing and Rock’n’Roll as a whole. Who knows, I might even check out some Megadeth or Alice in Chains after writing this review. Read Rockstar right away if you haven’t already!

“Rock ’n’ Roll is an attitude, it’s not a musical form of a strict sort. It’s a way of doing things, of approaching things. Writing can be Rock ’n’ Roll, or a movie can be Rock ’n’ Roll. It’s a way of life.” — Lester Bangs

NinjaPitka’s Rockstar embodies this sentiment to its core. More than just a story about rock music, it is Rock ’n’ Roll—raw, rebellious, and pulsating with defiance. Our protagonist isn’t just a musician; he’s a product of his father’s worn-out Gibson with the flat high E string—a symbol of the power music holds over him and the direction his life takes. His anger, cynicism, and self-destruction are inseparable from the rhythms that raised him and eventually lead him to his ruin, depending on what choices you make.

Sterling City, the world he navigates, is a tale of two realities: the seemingly pristine church scene hiding its own corruption and the gritty underground music world, where the truth is ugly but honest. There’s also a quiet tension running beneath its suburban veneer—the kind of restlessness that festers in those who grew up surrounded by contradictions. I like how Ninja used the same setting, Sterling City, in this story because we’ve seen many other stories by him set in Sterling City. I also enjoy how, each time, he introduces a new perspective and angle to Sterling City that we haven’t seen already. One thing in common with all the Sterling City stories is that the city feels alive and like a character of its own, rocking and rolling with the best of them.

And in this world, you—the reader—get to decide your own fate. It’s a bit on the shorter side, but there’s a good amount of endings—enough to be fun and leave you wanting more.

In Rockstar, we follow a young up-and-coming musician trying to break into the big leagues. Other stories may have chosen a more optimistic protagonist, maybe a bright-eyed youngster, optimistic and fresh to the scene with hopes of making it into the big leagues. Only to then make it, and then suffer a steep decline characterized by drugs, alcohol, and a boatload of other vices, right at the zenith of his success.

But this story does away with that trope because our protagonist has been floundering for a while now. This time around, no happy endings, and no long narrative arcs about a rockstar’s rise and fall. Just short, snappy, and unforgiving endings. Much like the chaotic city itself, the endings are rapid, and at best, the main character’s life just stays in this unsatisfying status quo.

The story is simple.

Forced to take a job playing music for the congregation of the Sterling Church Congregation, it’s clear he’s a round peg in a square hole. He’s not the clean cut, hyper religious guy for the job, but he needs it to pay the bills so he just adjusts. The metaphor of the church clothes having nowhere to store the smokes is a good analogy for his overall feelings towards his job. To top that off, he struggles to live up to the image of his father, and resents that because he’s got a lot of unresolved issues with his dad.

He plays his dad’s old guitar, and his dad also introduced him to music, but that’s the same guy who cheated on his mom and left the family. I thought Ninja did a really good job mirroring that inner conflict with the protagonist’s chaotic actions, and alternating between the inner monologue and the narrative beats of the story.

The internal monologue combined with the frequent observations/opinions of the main character, gives us great insight into the character's personality because we see the world through his eyes. It was well written and polished. All his past experiences and current feelings color the situation, lending this story a unique sense of character and narration that enhances its quality tremendously. The main character is definitely on the cynical and misanthropic side, evidenced by him thinking of moving a dead woman in her grave to the side as “a fry cook flipping a meat patty, medium rare please.” But that adds to the charm of the Sterling City stories, and this one definitely keeps in time with the best of them.

CHURCH STORYLINE:

Probably my favorite storyline because after the initial shock of Pastor Dan choking the intruder to death, you simply don’t know what to expect next. It was shocking and brutal.

The story is grim and takes a very dark turn as you and Pastor Dan must take the body away and bury it in the church cemetery. This story sheds a rather sinister light into the true nature of Pastor Dan’s character, behind his cheery smile and holier-than-thou demeanor, there’s a monster within. Ninja explores this idea really well as this event puts the 2 of them on equal footing; From subordinate and boss to 2 men sharing a smoke and burying a secret. Obviously the writing was good, and the story really blew me away. The ending in particular, subverts your expectations as Pastor Dan raises your pickaxe and prepares to bludgeon you to death in the grave you dug with your own digging tool, it doesn’t look good. And the link says “Blur”. That scene in particular was like watching a thriller movie, the writing evoked such suspense and horror that I gasped.

And then the transition to you standing over the dead bodies in the freshly dug grave, smoking a Marlboro cig, was masterfully done.

This path also sheds more light on the protagonist’s problems with his father, and I think the juxtaposition of the narrator introspecting about his father even in the most chaotic and stressful times says a lot of the wound the protagonist’s dad left on his life. His visceral reaction to seeing “MATTHEW BATE, LOVING FATHER, LOVING HUSBAND.” was good.

In just a few short words, we get the full picture and a satisfactory conclusion to the buildup from the very start of the story. Narratively speaking, that was well done. Nicely done!

AFFAIR STORYLINE

The affair storyline and the church storyline could not be more different. I like how in this relatively shorter story, there’s such a contrast in options. If you choose not to go into the church, you do the private tutoring gig and meet with your student and his mom, Miss Jane.

Even though at first glance this story seems a bit more lighthearted, it’s also dark. I noticed that Ninja likes to subvert expectations associated with seemingly more wholesome and family friendly places like the church or suburbia, and explore the dark underbelly within. In that story, it was murder, and the pastor hiding his true nature, while in this story, it’s an affair and spousal abuse.

Obviously these are really heavy topics. In this story, we also understand the aimlessness and flighty nature of our protagonist. He’s almost 30, no wife no kids, and working a dead end gig playing music he’s not particularly into while grappling with daddy issues. It doesn’t even seem like he particularly loves his student’s mom, he’s engaging in the affair more for the thrill of it, much like his love for rock and roll.

The rock and roll lyrics interspersed in breaks in the narration add to the overall feeling of excitement and thrill the narrator is feeling. Writing wise, that was a good decision. Also, it was really creative how Ninja likens the act of sex with music, using musical terms and concepts to characterize the experience, further emphasizing how the main character sees everything through the lens of rock and roll.

I think the darkest part of this storyline was at the end, when the main character hits the angry/abusive husband over the head with a guitar(the Taylor, not the Gibson), and notices his student, the son Bobby, with his cap lowered over his eyes, obscuring his face, playing the guitar in a trance-like state trying to escape it all. I thought the writing of that scene was particularly chilling, and the way Ninja juxtaposes the son playing the guitar with his mom in the kitchen, his dad lying on the floor in a pool of blood, and his music teacher nonchalantly leaving the scene after having an affair with his mom and bludgeoning his angry dad. Kid’s gonna need therapy, lots of it. Not gonna lie, that scene was really hard to read. Especially the chilling way the protagonist casually thought about the kid taking “OTC liquor cabinet medication” when he gets older.

GIG SCENES

The way you used text formatting to show the sign of Norma’s Tavern was so creative. I laughed out loud at the alternate bolded and unbolded text to create the effect of a flickering neon sign where some of the letters burned out. That was a creative idea, and one that I’ll be stealing in the future if I write an urban story.

I love the way you describe the bar, like you do with so many of your locations, since it feels like I can actually see the bar. It’s a worn down rock and roll bar that has seen better days, and stands in sharp contrast to the sleeker and more shiny nightclubs in the other Sterling City stories.

The dialogue between the main characters, the bar staff, and the regulars was good. Crisp, snappy, and hostile, it definitely feels grounded and in-tune with the overall vibe Ninja was trying to capture with his writing.

I also like the main character's observations of the other musicians playing at the gig, especially what he thinks it means to be a true musician. It was surprisingly philosophical as he thinks about how living in the moment and being sloppy with soul is so much more genuine and authentic than playing in perfect tune with all the notes down, but no heart in the performance.

The gig scene eventually branches to the 2 different bands you can choose to sign with. You can either join “Driftwood” and “Wreckage”. Just like I said earlier, there are no real happy endings, only status quo endings or escaping with your life. And there are also bad endings, as this path shows you.

If you join Wreckage, you’re unexpectedly involved in a botched gas station robbery with a new bandmate and commit suicide, since the only alternative is being forced to live the rest of your life in a solitary cell, cut off from music for good. Narratively speaking, it’s really depressing, and echoes the nihilistic and cynical themes of the overall story. It’s definitely bleak and narratively unsatisfying, but keeps in line with the overall tone of the story, as well as the tone and mood set by the previous Sterling City stories. The way Ninja writes that last scene, especially the metaphor of comparing the Magnum .44 with a microphone was well done, reinforcing the overall rock and roll theme with a particularly apt metaphor. The violence was brutal and visceral, ultimately ending abruptly that was interesting to read. That scene was fast paced and gave another angle to the life of a rock and roller.

If you join Driftwood, you do a successful performance and go home with a box of rolled up joints. Contrary to the Wreckage path which showcased the lows of rock’n’roll life, this path showcases the highs. I loved the way Ninja wrote the performance, especially the synergy between King and the main character. It was electric to read through, and I felt that energy! It was almost like a reader’s high when the writing is so evocative that it captures the imagination in a way a movie never could. I actually looked up the song and listened to it as I read so I could get a feel for what the experience must have been like. It was electrifying, and perfectly captured the adrenaline rush and thriller of being a rocker!

There’s a cosmetic choice where you choose to smoke a Marlboro, that doesn’t branch but it still adds to the overall experience. I enjoyed the use of cosmetic choices because it adds another layer to the story, and even the little vignettes that don’t branch still add to the overall vibe and feel that this story creates.

OVERALL TAKEAWAY
This story is a piece that gets at the very soul of rock and roll, stripping away at all the lies to get at the honest truth, all the highs and lows of the culture. Metaphorically speaking, of course, it definitely mirrors the highs and lows of the music, as the fast paced parts go really fast and strong, while the lows are really stark and bleak. It was an interesting piece for sure, one that left a lot of room for analysis. If it isn't obvious by now, I enjoyed this story and rated it an 8/8.

First Impression: Rock on!

God that was a retarded thing to put there but whatever. I really liked this one but didn't have a better joke or anything to put there.

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Story and worldbuilding: It's been a hot second since I last commented on a story so bear with me if the format isn't exactly like I've been using. This story just lives and breathes. The character is fantastically written, has compelling motives and backstory, and narrates like an absolute boss. I actually felt like I was following a 30-something who's rock career never quite took off and is now resigned to playing for the church service.

I did have a bit of an issue with the gun fight ending. It kind of makes sense but I feel like that could have gone a different direction. The other endings that I decided I absolutely needed to find were pretty good. Most of the choices led to a completely different outcome than I expected a story about a guy who likes rock music but plays for a church service to go. I like that the character never really goes anywhere and is mostly accepting and chill with it. There's no flashy rise to fame, which really adds to the real life feel.

The atmosphere was awesome too. I could visualize everything in my mind, and it was glorious. The drag of public transit, the youth singing, the graveyard, the bar, even the music was playing in my head.

Gameplay: The gameplay was a bit... simple. There weren't that many choices. Most of them completely changed the path of the story and that's what really counts if you are going for more story and less choice. At least two choices were just extra dialogue though, and one choice was basically choosing yes or no and getting the same result either way. Other than that, no complaints.

Grammar: Pretty much immaculate. I know there were some things that were misspelled or shortened on purpose and that added to the story so I'm not going to complain about it. I do think that ol needs an apostrophe at the end, but I might be wrong.

Overall: I give this a 10/10. The feel of the story and the excellent writing beat out anything negative I felt about it. Good job.

This story is a must-read, if only as an example of how to use narrative voice to its full extent. If you’re looking for escapist fiction, this is not it. In fact, I think part of the purpose of this story is a critique of certain escapist fiction. It is a great story though, and apparently building off the setting of Sterling City, of which I have lamentably read only one other story. It also weaves an impressive musical metaphor throughout and references lots of iconic rock and roll.

If I were to characterize the story to explain what to expect without spoiling anything, I would say that the entire story is like a character. It’s three dimensional. It’s also quite realistic and modern in the fact that you’re not really expected to win, and I wouldn’t even say that there is any clear conflict in the story. It’s a jumbled mess of the protagonist struggling with himself, the world, other people, religion, and you could probably find more. In this way, this is probably the storygame that I have encountered that most represents the human experience.

That’s not to say that the story is as dull as the life lead by the Everyman. The title is Rockstar after all. Nearly any path you choose contains at least one life altering event for the protagonist.

SPOILERS

The highlight of this story is easily the narration. We’re guided through the life of the protagonist by his own thoughts. There’s a misanthropic wit that runs through the entirety of the story and sets the tone of Sterling. In this way, I get the sense that the character practically is the city.

I am also blown away by Ninja’s descriptive instincts. He seems to know exactly when to describe something and when to leave it be. I would daresay that can be attributed to lots of practice and a labor of love.

The characters of the story are varied, but also all the same. From Pastor D to the wino on the bus, everyone wears at least a bit of a mask. Religion I’m Sterling is almost invariably simple empty ritualism aimed at pleasing the masses who demand it. The metaphor often used is comparing it to pop music. Obviously, this type of Protestant Christianity is informed by real life, and also seems extremely American. That’s beautiful, because it builds the character and attitude of Sterling itself. The protagonist is also an interesting character as he is almost entirely reactionary and passive in his actions. He’s not in the driver’s seat of his life and neither are you. The choices almost always just choose how he will react to a situation. That is a feeling that I am certain many readers can relate to.

The story itself almost seems secondary. It’s not so much a story as much as a person’s life lived. It’s difficult to reasonably express my impression of the story because of how much it was character driven. The thing that definitely impacted me the most was the fact that specifically when the preacher strangled the kid and when Wormfood pulled his gun, it really did feel like everything just spiraled out of control. There was certainly no guessing which way the story was going next.

If I were to try my best to throw stones at Ninja’s castle from my glass house, I would say I have one possible critique. In the path after the preacher killed the kid, when the two of you were in the cemetery, there are a couple of choices that just don’t really matter. They don’t even change the dialogue that much. I sort of understand the motivation behind the preacher smoking or not, but it doesn’t seem like that much of a revelation that the pastor secretly smoked or smokes. There is a real possibility that I am just a bit dim and don’t get it though.

1000000/10. i have no words. except for this is the most inspirational piece of literature i have ever read. thank you so much for creating this. i have been trying to reach enlightenment for decades. this helped me so much thank you

best thing ive ever read 10/10 enliting

Very well written and an extremely enjoyable read :)

Good stuff. I like guns and roses and the implementations of music lyrics. Gives it a rocky gritty vibe as if I'm listening to some radio while driving.