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ilikecutegirltheyreprettyco-blog · 5 years

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Escapism 2: Electric Boogaloo

One of the unspoken truths of the world of fiction and entertainment is that children and teens consume fiction and entertainment in the same way and in the same quantity that adults do. Children and teens are not as naive or out-of-touch as out-of-touch adults seem to think. If you asked the creators of works like "mature" works like Apocalypse Now if they thought that their works are suitable for children, they'd probably say something like "no, the themes, topics, and messages are too complex and real for children to handle or understand". This really isn't the case, because if it was, Apocalypse Now wouldn't have been my favorite movie as a kid. The media has a lot of influence on people's minds and beliefs, this is something everyone knows. Something adults love to partake in is escapism, escaping from reality, and the opposite extreme, experiencing reality for what it is. These two extremes are what I call "Slice of Life" and "Spice of Life". Slice of Life is pure escapism, an escape from reality, a way to cope with and oppose reality, to mold reality into something better. Works like Seinfeld, Lucky Star, Final Fantasy, The Avengers, Star Wars, works that subvert reality and our expectations of it, providing relief from it, are "Slice of Life". Works that show reality for what it is, like Spawn, Berserk, Ghost in the Shell, Apocalypse Now, works that say "hey, this is what's wrong with the world, someone do something!", works that show what life is like, works that allow people to perceive, vent, cope, and lash out at reality, these are "Spice of Life". Slice is an escape, Spice is a coping mechanism. Adults familiar with the world are able to tell the two apart, and analyze them for what they are and aren't. Children can't and don't, or at least, not as well. My generation, people born from 1995 to 1999, a weird transition between the millennials and today's generation Z, grew up in an interesting time. We're the last to regularly use VCRs, we're the last to live without the internet readily available for everyone, with the internet being some strange, foreign, seemingly unobtainable thing that was used for looking up cheat codes and play flash games, we're the last to regularly use box TVs, were weird. We grew up when Bush, the Christians, and the Conservative party were trying to take away out violent video games, and our vulgar music, our "mature" and "adult" entertainment. We hated Bush for sending young men to die for oil, we couldn't wait for a better president to come along and fix what he did, we didn't want Obama, we hated Mrs. Obama for trying to take away our junk food, and again, our "mature" and "adult" entertainment, our fun. We hated how we couldn't make finger guns on the playground, too. The media inadvertently caused plenty of us to develop libertarian core beliefs, and caused us to begin the transition into adult life with too much idealism to cope with it. We couldn't go on adventures as children, we couldn't become heroes or save the world, we couldn't fuck our teachers as teens, we couldn't make a positive change in the world, we can't make a positive change in the world. Generation X fully understood all of this, this reality, and they attempted to cope with it. There's a reason why the heroes and the stories of the 1990s were seen as brooding, immature, angsty, un-adult, and that's because people who had and have a problem with the real world are perceived that way. They see a problem with the world, so the world ostracizes them. In a way, society failed them, and has failed us, but that's a different topic. We grew up with the fiction of Gen X, and didn't have the worldview to experience it for what it was. We saw Spawn and Berserk in a "close, but no cigar" way, in it's depiction of the real world. We saw idealistic and optimistic works as closer to our reality, closer to real life, and took them more seriously. Sad thing is that this fucked us up, because that optimism and idealism was Gen X's escapism. There's nothing wrong with fucking your teacher, is there? As long as there's both consent to the relationship, and neither were forced into it, there should be nothing wrong with it, right? If a homeless person either has nowhere to go, or doesn't want to go to a shelter, nothing wrong with them sleeping in a public area, as long as they aren't hurting anyone, or being hurt, right? People aren't really dumb enough to morph into violent psychopaths just because someone made a speech, someone made a broadcast, someone posted something online, or someone made a meme, right? People aren't going to travel across the country to take advantage of an escalating political situation, just to have an excuse to loot, rape, and pillage, right? People aren't really so sadistic that they would be pacified from revolting against a corrupt government just because said government gave them an outlet in the form of watching people violently kill each other, right? People are actually going band together and cooperate en masse if the social order collapses, right? People aren't so selfish as to just be a bystander and stand there while a woman is being raped, a child being abducted, an old man beaten to death, right? People aren't so selfish as to sacrifice the safety and livelihood of their fellow humans, to protect and save themselves, right? On and on. The subversions of these realities has harmed our generation, I think. We didn't know reality well enough to differentiate subversion and idealism from the harsh reality of things. Idealism and subversions were more in tune with our reality, as children, because as children, we were idealistic, naive, and rebellious. Real life doesn't allow for those things. I'm not blaming Gen X for these things, but they didn't do a good enough job of explaining things to us. They made entertainment for adults, by adults, and when they thought children would tune in, they toned things down. We aren't prepared for the reality of this world, because we never had it blatantly shown to us, and when it was, the adults in our lives told us it wasn't to be taken seriously, it wasn't in tune with reality, etc. Hopefully future generations will get a grip on this kind of thing. Rant over.

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ilikecutegirltheyreprettyco-blog · 6 years

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Fallout: New Vegas interpretation

Obsidian entertainment are a bunch of fucking creative geniuses. KOTOR 2 is one of my favorite games of all times, and Kreia has had a very substantial impact on my beliefs and life, she's almost like extended family, as far as personal connection. Kreia's big thing was individuality, thinking for yourself, not being a slave to any one philosophy, teaching (ironically), belief system, etc. If you follow Kreia's teachings and guidance to the letter, embrace her beliefs and views as your own, she would consider you a failure as a student. A teacher's job is to teach, not to preach, they give you the information, what you do with it and how you interpret it is for you to decide, not her. Funny as this may sound, she's not a preacher, a preacher is a person who gives you information that is not their own, and tell you exactly what to do with it. Kreia wants you to take what she imparted upon you, and personalize it, refit it and modify it to integrate into how you see and believe things, or too ignore and discard it as a whole. As long as, if you do take what she taught you to heart, you make it your own, you've succeeded as a student of hers. Understanding Kreia's teachings, and succeeding as her student, leads you into what New Vegas directly deals with; subjectivity and of definite relevance, politics, specifically, American politics. The democrats, the liberals, the left, the libertarians, the independents, the green party, the right, the conservatives, the republicans, all believe they are right, and the others are wrong. The two most contrasting extremes, the far left, and the far right, demonize each other with a generalized image and stereotype. The right sees the left as corrupt, hypocritical, controlling, and wanting too much power, to encroach on the common man, big government. The left sees the right as bigoted and violent, racist monoculture people, who want to wage war on everything and take everything they want from the rest of the world, to force their culture upon others. Sound familiar? It really feels like the NCR and the Legion were written to fit the opposing sides to a T, not that that is how the NCR and Legion see each other, but how each side in real politics sees each other. It really seems like every faction in New Vegas was designed that way. Mr. House, as the Independents, Yes-Man as the libertarians. The difference between Fallout 3 and New Vegas, and also Fallout 1 and Fallout 2, is that there is not clear cut black/white good/evil right/wrong side, it's all up to the individual, and their subjective views, as opposed to 2 and 3, with "muh bad guys who are evilz who you can't join lol", instead of allowing you to decide for yourself, and pick a side for yourself. This is the important thing to take from what Kreia wanted you to learn, don't be indoctrinated by any one side or faction on who is right, and who is wrong, decide that by yourself, for yourself, and pick the side that is right and just in your eyes, subjectively, not seeing it as some "there is an objective right answer", because that's both an unhealthy way to think, and the same way that dictators, fascists, communists, etc, justify and think of their own actions. Decide things for yourself, the objectively right choice is what is subjectively right for you. Thanks for reading. Ave, true to Caesar!

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ilikecutegirltheyreprettyco-blog · 6 years

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Splinter Cell: Conviction and Sam Fisher as the anti James-Bourne-Wick

To start, let's talk about the whole "violence in video games" topic. There's plenty of people who have taken issue with modern gaming trend of "lol mow down hundreds, maybe thousands of enemies because you dindu nuffin", and there are just as many, or more, people who defend this trend, and argue it as harmless. It's delusional to think that video games "cause" violence, the people who would be spurred into violence by video games, music, or other forms of fiction, would eventually do something similar, or even worse. It's also argueable that violent fiction or entertainment doesn't really desensitize society at all, and removed from the equation, there'd be no improvement. That's just how we humans are, and violence as entertainment has been around for a very long time. It all comes down to the individual level, as far as the reactions and effects of this ancient trend. Roman coliseums and gladiators ring a bell? A common arguement from the defenders and apologists of violence and video games against those who take issue with it, at the personal level, people who see it as harmful to society, is "you're obviously incapable of separating reality from fiction, and thus insane". Again, it all comes down to the personal level, and the people who see it like that are often very prone and fond of immersion in their fiction, and while they can separate reality from fiction, after they begin to find issue with this, project their own tendency for immersion on others, as they are unaware at that time that not everyone becomes as involved in fiction and escapism as they do, and after realizing that their "fun and entertaining" fiction uses violence and conflict as the spur for creating that state, they see it as a reflection on themselves, what they do in the games, and even after they reach the conclusions nessasary to escape this phase of thinking, they might still feel this way, just keeping it localized to themselves. The above is basically an inb4 towards those kinds of arguements against the rest of this post. Now, hajime! If you play Splinter Cell Conviction as it's intended, you'll mow through hundreds of enemies over the course of the storyline. After Blacklist was announced, and the story had Sam re-employed by the US government, that makes no damn sense, considering Sam's actions in the game. Sam, as we knew him in previous games, didn't particularly feel fine with the idea of killing people, that wasn't his job. In Double Agent, after being devestated and broken by his daughter's death, still maintained this. It's notable that in the prison, he noticably took issue with the choice of killing the other inmate, even though it would be beneficial to his mission, and make earning the trust of a group of murderous terrorists that much easier. He still had a conscious. Even after everything he went through, he maintained that. "I'd rather not risk a firefight with civilians around." There's no evidence that Sam lost his humanity. After hearing the announcement of Blacklist myself, taking a step back, and saying "what the fuck", I went ahead and did a challenge run of Conviction, playing the game as the Sam Fisher as we knew him would. The difficulty was set on Realistic, the restrictions were, on every mission except the flashback to the middle east, if an enemy was killed, or Sam was detected, then the mission was restarted. The only people who could be killed were those required to progress. This tones down Sam's kill count from hundreds to less than a dozen. It's funny how this challenge run felt like the way the game was actually intended to be played. It was a breath of fresh air. It also made Sam being recruited by Fourth Echelon plausible and actually damn well-earned. Sam, if you play him like the game seems to be built for, is just like your hollywood supersoldier, your James Bond, your Jason Bourne, your John Wick, remorseless, "justified", unstoppable killers who save the day and leave behind a body count that would impress Ghengis Khan a little bit. It's in that way that Sam, and by extension, Splinter Cell Conviction, feel like the anti-bond,the anti-bourne. It's unlikely that the devs would've included the ability to complete the game like this unintentionally, or maybe it was. In previous games, if you snuck up and grabbed a guy, you could bop him on the side of the head, knocking him unconscious, you could come up to them and give them a love tap, possibly injuring them, but disabling them without lethal force. If you only attack enemies in Conviction like this, it's consistent with the previous games that it's non-lethal. In other words, inb4. Sam is completely capable of being the murderous super-soldier, the John Wick, but if you know him at all, that's not who he is, he holds value for human life, even after everything he went through. Thanks for reading.

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ilikecutegirltheyreprettyco-blog · 6 years

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Anal-assis(t) of parts of Evangelion that hasn't been talked about in depth much

The word around the watering hole has always been that Hideaki Anno designed the characters of Eva to be unlikeable, that he designed a lot of the series, especially in EoE, to be passive aggressive insults to fans of Evangelion, otaku, hikkimori, waifufags, etc, and that he hates otaku. Much of the hikkimori population of Japan (studies show, citation: wikipedia) have no outstanding mental illnesses, personality disorders, debilitating social or interpersonal phobias, nothing really from stopping them from being productive members of society, and just like the hikkimori and hardcore otaku (and their american counterparts, weeaboos and NEETS) who have outstanding disabilities or obstacles that make integration into productivity and genpop (general population) difficult, undesirable, or impossible, they live vicariously through their hobbies and anime, they supplement their lack of success with video games, their lack of a romantic or sexual life with cute girls, waifus, pornography, CGDCT/slice of life series, their lack of social interaction with online games, forums, imageboards, anime, MMORPGs, video games, the few friends and family they can interact with,who likely don't even share the same interests, on and on. The funny thing is, though, unlike those they act like and live like, they have no reason to do so. Curious, isn't it? There are 3 major groups of people who don't like Evangelion, there will be many more reasons, but these are the most common; 1] Well integrated, mentally sound/sane, and productive members of society, who find the characters to be disgusting, unlikeable people, who they often believe cease to be characters and degrade into freudian archetypes. 2] People who felt turned off by the second half of the series, who felt it to be too pretentious, too dark, too unsettling for them to continue, maybe one or all of those. 3] People who's life experiences made the characters so relatable, that instead of that engrossing them and immersing them in the story and characters, that they couldn't continue to watch it. The YouTuber supereyepatchwolf is one of these people (from memory, might be mistaking him with another). Here's the kicker, the funny little thing; the only difference between reason numero uno and those uninhibited "otaku" and "hikikimori" described above is lifestyle choices. Hideaki Anno didn't give them their perfect people, their dream girls, their identifiable protagonist, their epic finale ending with the hero picking one of the two love interests, he gave them imperfect people, with flaws, problems, mental scars, trauma, mental and personality disorders, and in the end this protagonist did not end up choosing a girl at all, he was whisked away by a gay guy, who showed the protagonist genuine and unconditional kindness and love. This is something that these people wouldn't pick up on as they witnessed it happening, from their eyes, Shinji already had that, they wouldn't understand how or why Shinji could wholeheartedly not feel truly loved or cared for, because they don't have experience with that side of life, the darker aspects, the parts that come with the package labelled "life problems", because they received a package labelled "normal, objectively universal among the sane and healthy, developmentally sound, genpop". Keep in mind, this is in no way denying that genpop doesn't have life problems that vary in intensity and impact, but it's a very different set of problems, and if we picture this as a venn-diagram, there may be little to no overlap, depending on the person. People like those of Eva's cast, excluding group 3, will immediately or with little time passed comprehend everything they are going through. It was episode 3 or 4, when Shinji felt like everything was closing in on him, everything became too loud, too overwhelming, causing him to panick and run away. The people on places like evageeks and other places of discussion seem to view this as a psychotic breakdown of sorts, and it doesn't look like any of them have considered that that scene depicted extreme autistic overstimulation. Ever wondered how it feels for someone on the spectrum to become so overwhelmed and overstimulated that they cannot function until they calm down? After that scene, you now know. If Hideaki Anno really wanted to make the characters unlikeable, no one would like them. What it really seems like, is that he wanted the people of group 1 to find them unlikeable, and he wanted to deny the members of group 1 who have no justifable reason to live as hikikimori or otaku or NEET or weeaboo to feel betrayed, to subvert their expectations, to upset them, and the people who outraged at the series conclusion, the people who harassed Anno and sent him death threats, the people who prompted EoE's development, these are the people he was really targeting. Keep in mind, NEET and hikikimori who, again, have no real excuse to not integrate into genpop, are a very big problem in Japan. If the only people who lived like that in Japan were the mentally ill, the disabled, people who cannot function normally because of things they cannot help, than this wouldn't be as much of a problem for them. In a funny way, the average weeaboo, NEET, otaku, or hikikimori of america are closer as a whole to being composed primarily of those people than Japan is. I believe that this was the real meaning behind the "anti-otaku" elements of Anno and Eva. Too much adds up for it to be otherwise. Thanks for reading.

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