The map (editor) is not the territory, but it felt like it
StarCraft's map editor taught me the word 'asphalt' - a word I don't recall ever having real cause to use and yet have intensely strong memories of learning; as a synonym, a sort of flavourful synonym, probably partly because of the innate musicality of it which may even mostly have derived from its novelty. I laugh now to myself because music is so painfully subjective that I fear I cannot convey what I feel if you do not (like a writer might, ha). But don't you feel it? AS-PHALT. It feels like a long inward breath preceding a plummet to me, physically undeniable, but I digress.
I digress because the real strength of the word is probably just that I learned it from StarCraft, which made it better than a normal word - it made it a StarCraft word. You know how it works, I think. You're small and sponge-brained and you learn most words either in context from stories you're too young to appreciate as actual constructions of language, far too pulled along by the machinery of the story, the way Aslan bleeds into his fur, the way Arthur Dent loses his lunch in