eighthphase | Entries tagged with blogs are for blogging

I should probably actually start tagging things; it's not like I don't have a stupid number of tags. I guess I just always forget.

Anyway, I'm on Noveria with Cam - Port Hanshan, specifically. I haven't gone and done much yet except the smuggling assignment; I'm not sure how I want to play out the garage pass part. I think I might just do Qui'in's thing and leave it at that. It feels like that's the kind of thing Cam would do. I'm still trying to get a feel for her character, really. It's not too hard to figure out what Liv does; she's the hopelessly hopeful paragon hero except for when there's a renegade interrupt, because those are always really badass. I can rationalise that as her being, well... a hopelessly hopeful paragon hero who's become a bit jaded since her death and subsequent revival. She still wants to do the hero thing, but she's not going to take shit from anyone, either.

( words about role playing and characterisation )

(And then I realised I only have icons of Olivia. Oops.)

edit: now with bonus Cam icon!

I just finished Disney Town in Terra's story (on my beginner playthrough because fffff not trying to 100% while trying to story, thanks) and I realised I've got some beef with how they treat darkness in this game. I think part of it's just me and what I think, but I want to get this out there anyway, because there's no such thing as too much fanon!

So we start the game, and Aqua and Terra are taking the test to become Keyblade Masters. Aqua passes. Terra doesn't - because, according to Eraqus, there's too much darkness in his heart. (Not a spoiler; we should all know this by now.) This was demonstrated to us, the players, when he almost uses ~*~the powers of darkness~*~ during the test. Key word there: almost. He starts to, and then he stops. Eraqus seems to interpret that to mean that Terra doesn't have control over his darkness, but I disagree. I think it means that he does have control, because even though he does lose control for a moment, he quickly reins it back in.

We then spend the rest of Terra's story watching Terra learn that darkness is not the only way. It's true, darkness isn't the only way. But that doesn't mean that light is, either. Everyone has darkness in their heart, except for the Princesses of Heart - that's everyone; even Eraqus, even Aqua. Terra doesn't need to learn to stamp out the darkness inside of him in order to become a true Keyblade Master; he just needs to be able to know when it's okay to use and when it's not okay to use. Sometimes you do have to fight fire with fire - that's what King Mickey and Riku do, during KH2, after all, and nobody's arguing that they're bad or evil. Don't Sora and Riku even argue with Xemnas, that the darkness isn't inherently bad? (I think they did, anyway, but I might have picked that up from fanon :/ ) The darkness is a tool, just like the light is; it's what you do with it that makes it either good or evil.

Certainly it's easier to do bad inside the darkness, because people don't see it like they do in the light, but if you know yourself and you can say, "This is where I draw the line," in regards to your actions, then your power won't go to your head. Terra can do that, and we as players see that he can, so I don't get why everyone considers him tainted by the darkness. He's definitely still learning, but he knows how to do the right thing. Whether he uses light or darkness to do that shouldn't matter.

(There's a spoilery version of this that goes into the plot more, but now is not the time for that version. Maybe after I beat the game...)

Current Mood: thoughtful
Current Music: 21st Century Breakdown :: Green Day

So I was just watching some live E3 coverage, but then I had to turn the television off in disgust, because some asshole from Sony was being all chauvinistic, and the crowd was just eating it up like it was holy gospel or something.

I don't like the way the gaming community treats girls. I really don't. To be a Girl Gamer, you basically have to act like a frat boy, because most of the hardcore gamers act like frat boys (even if they're only eleven, which is criminal, really) and of course you have to act just like One Of The Guys. If you're a girl, then clearly you're never going to be good at real games, so just go back to your virtual table tennis and Barbie Horse Adventures and leave the real games to the men. Or you have to be absolutely awesome at whatever the game of the week is, you have to be more than willing to throw around demeaning insults, and you have to be attractive, so that the guys can talk about how you're Just Like Them and it doesn't even matter that you're a girl, all while they're staring at your breasts. And I don't like that.

I don't really know how to say what I really want to say about this, because I have other issues (like JRPGs aren't real games, or real RPGs, among other things) with the gaming community as a whole. I also realise that my problem is probably with a vocal minority, rather than the gaming community as a whole. But it's the vocal minority that makes me not self-identify as an anime fan, and it's the vocal minority that makes me not self-identify as a gamer, either, and I think that's a little sad.

Current Mood: thoughtful

And another nervous breakdown, worse than yesterday's (or should I say Sunday's? It is technically Tuesday, now) and about the same topic. Mum's granted me another day, even though we both know that she shouldn't have; then again, when you've watched your daughter working relentlessly for five hours and then she comes into your room after midnight freaking out because she's not sure she can fill another two and a half pages and manage to not sleep through half of tomorrow, I guess you're a bit more lenient.

I did almost get through page twelve. I just... I've already written almost everything I can think of about transgender discrimination and I still need more. I'd write more about the Gwen Araujo case if I could find more information about it, but the only source that's really popping up is Wikipedia, and Waller would kill me if I cited that (I mean, even the article says it needs more citations, so how can I know that it's truly reliable?). I'm kind of kicking myself in the shin for not paying more attention when her murder was in the media (even though it's been almost eight years, and I was nine), because maybe if I remembered more about it I could write more.

I'm not going to waste tomorrow morning; I don't want to go through this again. I'm going to finish my paper, and then have fun, whether that comes in the form of reading more or playing Portal.

Which reminds me, Portal is free through Steam until the 24th, I guess Valve is being generous because they announced Portal 2 earlier this month. Steam is also free, so that's pretty cool.

Earlier (around nine or so, I think) I had an idea for a post about slash fiction v het fiction v yaoi fiction and why I'm more compelled to read what I do, but I was saving it for tomorrow so I could concentrate on my paper. Then while I was researching Don't Ask Don't Tell, I actually started crying reading some of the letters soldiers affected by it are sending President Obama, asking for his help in repealing the law, because their stories were so moving. (I'm still teary and shaky now, but it's mostly the stress this time. And a little bit reading about Gwen, I have to admit.)

Even though my personal philosophy on this and a lot of things basically amounts to, "Your right to express yourself ends at the tip of someone else's nose," which would imply a good deal of apathy about... a lot of things, I really do believe what I'm writing in my essay. I really do believe that discrimination, for whatever reason, is wrong; that same-sex couples deserve the right to marry, with all the legal implications that implies; and that many of the atrocities committed in the name of intolerance should never have happened, and should never happen again. I can't say that I'm not affected by the viewpoints of my parents, and that I don't buy into stereotypes just a little, and that I don't display intolerance myself, sometimes; but I am open-minded about the world, and I'm not afraid to apologize when I'm wrong or offensive, and I do try to be a decent human being. I just wish the rest of the world - hell, even just the rest of the country - could say the same thing.

And now this has turned into a Blog Post like I was trying to avoid. I don't even know how much of this is coherent... I should just go to bed.

Current Mood: stressed

So, Obama's cut funding from NASA. Actually, what he really did was increase their budget, and then tell them in no uncertain terms that it was in no way whatsoever to be used toward the goal of getting our men back on the moon. Either way you look at it, it means that the Constellation Program? Yeah, that's basically been shafted.

This makes me unspeakably angry, for more than one reason.

First, I've got to read his State of the Union speech for APE. He spends a lot of time in it talking about programs (clean energy, high-speed rail systems, and the like) and how there's no reason why China or Europe should do those things before we do, because we're America and we do things like that first.

Well, there's no reason why they should return to the moon before we do, either, but thanks to his cutting the Constellation Program, they probably will.

Second, that whole American spirit thing. Isn't the American spirit to get out there, to explore and colonise new places? Americans jumped all over the chance to get out on the frontier otherwise known as the West. (And they obviously did, since I'm writing this in California.) There's another frontier out there. It's all around us. It's called outer space. Why aren't we out there? That is our future, and we are letting it stagnate.

Third, the "private sector." Obama says, "Don't worry, NASA, the private sector will keep working on manned missions into space! :D" (Er, paraphrased.) That's all well and good... if you want corporations and ridiculously wealthy individuals to be the only people ever out in space. (I was going to make an Iron Man 2 reference - "I've successfully privatised world peace." - but Tony Stark counts as a ridiculously wealthy individual, so maybe not.) Additionally, they're still working things out. They're not the end-all be-all of space. Sure, the private sector has funding that NASA clearly doesn't. Newsflash - NASA's got something that the private sector doesn't have. They've got experience. They actually know what they're doing! And considering how long it's taken NASA to get that experience, do we really want to wait for the private sector to do the same before we can move forward?

Fourth and finally, two points related to the Constellation Program specifically. The current shuttle fleet was due to be retired in 2010. This year. Now, if they are retired, then America wouldn't even be able to get its men to the ISS that Obama wants to focus on - not without relying on other countries, anyway. Do we want to do that? Are you sure?

But then, if they aren't retired, that's even more serious. The technology our shuttle fleet is based on is at least 25 years old. It's not efficient and we could do better. We were doing better, what with the Ares rockets and the Orion capsule. But then, those were part of the Constellation Program, meant to make manned space missions to the moon a reality once more, and so now NASA can't do that. So if the current shuttle fleet isn't retired, that means we're still using it. We're still using technology older than I am, technology that isn't efficient, that isn't reliable, and that isn't cheap to maintain.

We originally had five shuttles. We have three now. I don't think I need to remind anyone what happened to the other two. How many more times does that have to happen before the technology can change?

To wrap this up, since it's getting long and I need to actually finish getting ready this morning, I'll return to the State of the Union speech I was talking about earlier. Obama talks about how he's been told that, in regards to political change, "we should just put things on hold for a while." He goes on to say, "For those who make these claims, I have one simple question: How long should we wait? How long should America put its future on hold?"

How long, indeed, Mr. Obama. Our future is waiting for us. It won't wait forever.

So yesterday I was dragged off to dad's, which... is a pretty unproductive place as far as working on major APE projects goes. He gave me coffee *___* Total mistake, really, because then I spent quite a while... playing Folklore.

I don't think I've talked about Me And Folklore before ~~well, possibly on an older journal, but~~. I cannot recommend this game more to anyone who has a PS3. It's like the one game you need to play if you own a PS3. Did you know that the Six-Axis controller has limited motion detection capabilities? I don't think most games make use of it, really. Folklore... really does. And it's fun. And the mystery element of the story is ridiculously engaging. And Keats is really hot. ~~That's why I picked up the game, anyway.~~

But anyway, re:progress in Folklore, I restarted it and actually played it properly, this time - that is, switching off between Ellen and Keats to get the whole story. It's weird seeing all these scenes I hadn't seen before! Blew through the prologue chapter(s), finished Ellen chapter 1 (though I didn't get to snag Cait Sidhe, I wanted that bastard! ...or even Bug-a-boo, for that matter B| ) and then got killed by Cernunnos as Keats because I took too much damage waiting for him to do things that he did against Ellen, even though the tactics they both use against him are entirely different. No, self, Keats doesn't have to be smart, he just has to smack Cernunnos around a lot!

This whole topic (combined with the fact that I've been listening to my Final Fantasy playlist for the past three days) brings me to another topic (one I actually meant to talk about yesterday, but then I got distracted by shiny steampunk-esque films), and that is judging people based on the video games that they play. For me, this basically boils down to: If you judge me negatively because I don't play the games you play, then I judge you negatively because you don't play the games I play. If you judge me for playing "older" games, I judge you for not playing them. It basically works like that.

This goes hand-in-hand with the realisation that, despite it probably being one of the best-known songs in video gaming history, most people aren't going to recognise One Winged Angel. (Or even the chocobo theme, which... is probably better-known than Sephiroth's.) This realisation makes me sad, because there are generations of children out there who have never played anything older than a PS2 (and at this point, probably nothing older than a PS3 - or did Wii come out first? Seventh-gen consoles are what I mean, anyway). Backwards compatibility and porting older games to newer systems is all well and good, but we're reaching a point where new consoles aren't really all that backwards compatible ($199 PS3 and DSi, I'm looking at you) and porting older games is seen as developers being lazy or beating their dead cash cow. (Hi there, mixed metaphors!)

The very first video game console came out in 1972. Video gaming is 38 years old. This is random trivia. No one actually cares about this.

I think that basically, what that all boils down to, is that I'm only sixteen, damn it, I shouldn't feel old! (Yeah, I know, crai moar.)