Stealing Commas

Edith and Ben - Charlize tells Ben about the Truck

2012-02-19T19:07:00.000-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[This is on the drive from the airport to Forks when Ben first arrives in Washington.]

As I said, Charlize and I aren't big on talking and car rides together tend to involve listening to the radio while I look out the window and she drives. It looked like this was going to be one of those rides, but then she said, "I got you a truck."

It took me a while to process that. It took me a while to notice that my mouth was actually agape. I looked at her. I looked at the road ahead of us. I looked out my window. I looked back at the road ahead. I still wasn't sure what to think about that. Finally I said, "I have no idea what to say about that."

There was a long moment of... well not silence because the radio was on, but not-talking.

Then she said, "Well, I could tell you what I was afraid you'd say and what I hoped you'd say. Maybe that would give you some ideas."

"Sure."

"I was afraid you'd say, 'A truck? What would I want with a truck? I hate trucks. You're the worst mother ever.' I hoped you'd say, 'Thanks.'"

"You are not the worst mother ever."

"That's high praise."

"Can I see the truck before I decide how I feel about it?"

"Of course."

I tried to go back to looking out the window and listening to the music, but now I was curious. "So how old is it?"

"Well... it's older than I am."

"How much?"

The way she said, "Eleven years," made it pretty clear that she wished I'd asked something else first. She quickly added, "But it's in good repair."

So it was a truck, in good repair, from the 1950s. Assuming that she was right about that, though as far as I knew she didn't know anything more about trucks than I did, I had to wonder how she came across a well maintained truck half a century old. So I asked, "Where did you find it?"

"You remember Billie Black?"

Billie Black was one of my mother's best friends, we used to go fishing with her. She didn't live in Forks, but instead lived with her tribe in a place called La Push about 12 miles to the left. I definitely remembered her so I said, "Of course."

"Well... well she didn't need her truck anymore, so she let me have it cheap."

I didn't remember her truck, but I did remember that she seemed to really understand mechanical things, so if it was her truck I figured Charlize was probably right about it being in good repair. That brought up an entirely unrelated question, "Why doesn't she need it anymore?"

Charlize took a moment, before answering. "She's in a wheelchair now, and... that makes a truck from the 50s not really fit her anymore."

I wasn't prepared for that. "Was there an accident?"

"No. Diabetes." Charlize sighed. "It's not like she stopped being herself, and I don't want to pity her, but she was always so..." she didn't seem to know what to say, but I knew what she meant. Billie could never sit still. On dry land she was always on her feet, seldom running but always walking or at least standing. The only time she wasn't was when she was fishing, or, presumably, when she was driving the truck that I still couldn't remember. It seemed almost unimaginable that she couldn't stand any more. Charlize interrupted my thoughts by saying, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't be dumping all this on your first day here."

"No, it's ok. I had to hear it sooner or later." I hadn't been to Forks in four years. Hearing about Billie really drove home what that might mean. I wasn't sure I was ready for how things had changed. I didn't really remember all that much of how things were, but already such a big part of what I did remember had been overturned.

"The bright side, such as there is one, is that you're getting a truck that's spent the last 20 years in the hands of a really competent mechanic. Try to dwell on that for now, and leave the rest for later."

-

[Edith and Ben Index]

Snarky Twilight - Alice and the Truck

2012-02-19T19:00:00.000-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[Recap: In defiance of the narrative, Bella drove herself home meaning that Alice didn't need to drop of Bella's truck. Credit must be given to Meow for the idea this is built around.]

*Bella hears knocking on her window*

*She looks to see a girl outside of it. (Remember that this is a second story window)*

*Bella opens the window.
Girl: Hi.
Bella (confused): Hi.
Girl: I'm Alice
Bella: Hi, Alice. I'm Bella.
Alice: I know.
Bella: I figured you would, why are you knocking on my window instead of my door?
Alice: Style.
Bella: Come on in.
*Alice climbs through the window*
Alice: Thanks.
Bella: You must be freezing, the rain is pounding out there.
Alice: Yes it is. Does that seem odd to you?
Bella: Why would it be odd?
Alice: Well this climate doesn't have pounding rain.
Bella: I wouldn't know, I'm from Arizona.
Alice: Anyway, you're probably wondering why I came.
Bella: It crossed my mind.
Alice: I was supposed to bring your truck back to you.
Bella: That's nice, but already have my truck.
Alice: I know. But the thing is... the thing is that I don't actually get to do much in this story, good women being invisible and all, so I was really looking forward to finally getting a chance to do something. So I was wondering...
*Alice looks down, and bites her lip (but not in a vampire way, just the way the humans do sometimes)*
Alice: I was wondering if I could borrow your truck so that I could bring it back.
Bella: You want to take my truck away for the sole purpose of bringing it right back again?
Alice: Yes! That's exactly what I want.
Bella (suspicious): Is your brother going to be involved in this?
Alice: Not in the least. This is all me, that's why I was looking forward to it.
Bella: I keep the keys by the door downstairs.
Alice: Thank you.
*Alice hugs Bella*
Alice: Thank you so much.
*Alice runs out of the room and down the stairs. Soon after the truck's engine roars to life and drives away.*

*Bella watches by the window, wondering if it was a good idea to give the keys to time and space to someone she doesn't really know. When her truck comes back into view it isn't touching the ground. Alice is holding it aloft, dancing to unheard music, the wires from headphones visible, though the headphones themselves are hidden under her hair.*

*Bella smiles*

*Alice reaches the house and gently, and silently, sets the truck down. Then dances her way back in the direction whence she came.*

-

[Snarky Twilight Index]

Edith and Ben - Erica and Scraped Hands

2012-02-19T18:52:00.001-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[This would be after Ben returned from tide pool viewing through the woods, going faster than he safely could and getting scraped up in the process.]

I didn't think it was that obvious I'd hurt my hands, I wasn't dripping blood or anything, but apparently it was noticeable because pretty much the moment Erica saw me she asked, "What happened to your hands?"

My reflex was to hide them, and I said, "Nothing."

"I can see it's not nothing, let me see."

"I fell in the woods a couple of times. It's no big deal."

She held out her left hand, palm up, "If it's no big deal then there's no harm in letting me take a look." I hesitated, then put my right hand on top of her left. It didn't want to open and I had to will myself to override that desire. "Ben, this is terrible."

"I've had worse."

"If the best thing you can say about something is, 'I've had worse,' then that's a sure sign it's pretty bad." She looked back at my hand.

"You sound like my mother."

She said, "Then your mother sounds smart," without looking away from my hand.

"So anyone who agrees with you is smart?"

She let go of my hand and looked me in the eyes, "Only the ones who agree with me when I'm right. Ben, you didn't even clean the wounds, I could see dirt in there."

"They're scrapes, not gashes. Who ever heard of cleaning a scrape?"

"If it's deep enough for dirt, it's deep enough to clean. Now look, I've got..." she checked her pockets, of which there were many, eventually finding what she was looking for on one of the inside pockets of her coat, "I've got some disinfecting wipes-"

"You carry those around everywhere?"

"More or less," she offered them to me. "You should use them."

I did, and many words went through my mind, most of them derivatives of, "Fuck," but I said nothing.

"I know it hurts, but an infection would hurt more."

-

[Edith and Ben Index]

Twilight, Masquerade Burlesque: Explanation for using a Truck as an Umbrella

2012-02-19T18:44:00.001-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[Following up on the idea that the Cullens are intentionally failing the masquerade in absurd and over the top ways for fun, someone suggested that Alice lifted the truck above her head and danced down the street with it. This would be Alice explaining why she did that to a vampire who wasn't in on the game.]

Not-in-on-it Vampire: You walked down the street holding a truck over your head!
Alice: Actually, I danced down the street holding a truck over my head. I figured people would notice the dancing and not the truck. I needed the truck, you see.
Not-in-on-it Vampire: No. I don't see. What could possibly make you think carrying a truck like that was a good idea?
Alice: Well I heard there might be sun, and I was outside, and if I didn't cast a shadow on myself I would have sparkled and given everything away.
Not-in-on-it Vampire: So you carried a truck?!
Alice: Well, an umbrella on a sunny day would have been suspicious.
Not-in-on-it Vampire [is at a loss for words]

-

[Twilight Index]

Reader self insert character meeting the traitor alone

2012-02-18T09:46:00.001-05:00

[So this is a product of two different things. One is this thread at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings in which characters meeting with people they believe are villains alone, unarmed, with no way to call for backup, without telling anyone that's what they're doing, and without so much as recording the conversation is brought up and, appropriately, looked down on. The other was someone saying in the comments of this thread at the Slacktiverse that adding them to a story would massively change it and me thinking that I probably wouldn't, unless I remembered the story and could use that knowledge to change things. And at some point I stopped thinking about it in terms of "I" and switched to a newly created fictional character.]

[So the story so far is that Character 1 has been transported into, more or less, a book ze read/movie ze saw/thingy ze thingyed. When ze got ze lost hir memory as is traditional in starting characters with mysterious origins. The result being that ze had no foreknowledge of events, just an increasingly strong sense of déjà vu. Ze has joined up with the heroes but has yet to make any difference in the story, and this is what happens when ze does remember and decides to follow the long held, justifiably criticized, trope of meeting with the traitor while completely defenseless.]

Character 1: “I've finallyremembered. I remember who I am, I remember where I from, I know whyI feel like I've been through all of this before. Where I come fromI read all of this in a book, I didn't know it was real, I had noidea you were real people or that this was really happeningsomewhere. I thought your lives were fiction.”

Character 2 starts to leave, “That'snice, I have to-”

Character 1: “Please, just listen alittle while longer, this is important. Please.” Character twostays, but is clearly annoyed. Character 1 continues, “The reason that I've had aconstant sense of Deja vu is because I've read all of this, whichmeans that nothing I have done has made a difference. Everythingwould have been exactly the same if I weren't here. I haven'tchanged anything. I don't matter.

“That changes now. Right here, rightnow I'm going to matter.”

Character 2: “This is all reallynice, but I think your head injury is-”

Character 1: “I know you're planningto betray us.” *Pause* “I'm not going to let that happen.”

Character 2: “Ok, first, you'redelusional. Second, if that were true how would you stop me?”

Character 1: “It's very simple,either you can decide not to betray us right now, or you can kill meright now. But you're going to have to pick one or the other.

“I know that you're not a bad person,I know that given time to think about you'd realize that it's notsomething that you want or need to do. I also know that if I donothing you won't get that time. It'll be over in a moment with nogoing back. I'm changing that.

“Now it's not just one act, but two. To betray us you'll have to kill me now, live with that for a while,and then still to choose to do it then. You'll have ample time forreflection. That's my gift to you. The reality of the situation ina way that's immediate and undeniable, and time to think over thatreality before you do something at effects so much more than a singlelife.

“I'm unarmed. I haven't told anyoneelse, but if you don't decide to come clean and join our side forreal I will. And I'll leave out the part about reading it in a bookso that they'll take it seriously. It doesn't matter whether or notthey believe me, the suspicion will be enough to ruin your plans. Soif you want to go through with those plans, you're going to have tokill me.

“I know you well enough to know thatthat's something you can't push from your mind. You might be able toput off really thinking about betrayal until it's already been done,you might be able to treat it as some abstraction disconnected fromthe reality of the people in front of you, but you can't do the samewith my dead body. You'll be able to get away with it, I'm sure, butyou won't be able to dismiss it the way you've dismissed thoughts ofwhat betrayal will mean to the others.

“I ... didn't think I'd have a chanceto say this much. You've been quiet for a long time.”

Character 2: “I'm thinking.”

-

[Original Work Index]

.hack//Sign: Responsibility

2012-02-17T16:57:00.000-05:00

.hack recap: Tsukasa has accepted that, since he can't log out, the game world is his world now.

(I recommend actually buying .hack//Sign since my words don't really do it justice. One can get either the DVD this episode is on, or the full series as a set.)

.hack//Sign, Episode 2, 1:35*-4:31

This episode is called Guardian and, asyou might have guessed, Tsukasa's Guardian will show up in it. Before we get to that, though, we'll have a lot of other stuff tolook at.

The episode starts with Tsukasastanding in the rain in a thunderstorm. He says, “No way,” and Ihonestly have no idea what he's referring to. I could just randomlymake something up (e.g. he realizes it should be impossible to feelthe rain on his skin and yet he does anyway) but there's really notenough in the scene to know.

The next scene has him in the sameplace he repeatedly met Mimiru in the previous episode, a place thatappears to be in the mountains above the clouds, with wooden bridges that disappear into the fog/mist/cloud below. It's also defined by green grass, and sortof kite things in the air. It's very welcoming looking.

He's sitting on a fence and throwing acartoonish bit of produce to a cartoonish animal. (Vegetation shouldnot have a face with which to smile at you if it is about to bedevoured. Just saying.) Eating the fruit causes the animal, agrunty, to level up into an adult. So it goes from being a furryhippopotamus with blonde hair the size of a small dog to a furryhippopotamus with blonde hair about the length and height of a donkey(though, as you'd expect, wider.)

It says that there's no need foranother adult in the area, and flies away. (It just sort of tiltsupwards 45 degrees and walks away even though there's nothing for itto walk on.)

Probably the most important part ofthis scene is that Tsukasa seems amused, almost bordering on happy. Which, at this point, appears to be something he only does when noother human beings are around. He goes for a walk and it turns outother human beings are around.

The first person he walks by is Bear,whom he notices but ignores until Bear asks him if he's read themessage board. Tsukasa hasn't. Tsukasa can't. You have to log outto access the BBS. The only time Tsukasa ever learns about somethingon the board is when someone tells him. And it's not as if he asksanyone. His response here isn't, “Why?” or, “What did it say?”but instead, “It's not my problem.”

Bear doesn't press the issue, thoughthe way he says, “Never mind, then,” is laced with enoughsuspicion to provoke a visible reaction from Tsukasa before Tsukasaresumes walking way.

The next person he passes is Mimiruwho, on seeing him, takes a moment to collect herself and thensmiles. Tsukasa completely ignores her, he doesn't even glance herway as he walks passed. While Mimiru is annoyed and distracted bythat, Bear sneaks up on her and startles her. (He doesn't actuallysay “Boo” but he might as well have.)

Then we cut to a conversation betweenthe two in medias res. Since it does start in the middle we don't know if this is the first conversation they've had on the subject, orsimply the first we see. Either way, it's the first of manyconversations they'll have concerning Tsukasa and the eventssurrounding him.

I said in the first episode that Ithink it's incredibly important, enough so for me to see it as theresult of a benevolent destiny, that these are the people Tsukasamet. This is why. These two people will end up spending hugeamounts of time and energy trying to help Tsukasa even though theynever met him before, he's not really a fun person to be around muchof the time, and in these initial meetings he's been nothing butrude.

To a certain extent this plays into afantasy that you see used and abused in other places, the thing atthe root of Edward Cullen and Manic Pixie Dream People:that someone can come along and care about you and help you no matterhow much of a jerk your insecurities might make you into. Thatsomeone will come along and see the beauty that is the real you andyou won't be able to push them away and so you'll get what you wantin spite of the fact that the way you're acting is making it prettymuch impossible to get it.

The parallel is definitely there,though as time goes on we'll see a bunch of places where they differfrom the standard MPDP. They're not always right, they willmake mistakes, they'll work off bad assumptions, they'll occasionallymake things worse, but more important than all of that is thatthey're not controlling. They won't say, “You will bake for me,”the closest they might come is something more like, “I really thinkyou should find something you like doing. Have you consideredbaking? If you don't want to bake that's fine, but I just wanted tolet you know that baking is an option.”

Anyway, I think there's also somethingelse at work beyond the standard, “Someone will save you even ifyou're a jerk,” fantasy. I think there's also a question ofresponsibility.

What I see with Bear and Mimiru remindsme of a post by Fred Clark on the question of responsibility. As isalways the case with Fred Clark, the whole thing is worth reading. That said, the most relevant section is when he talks about an Ethics101 question:

It might behelpful to look at this through the lens of a textbook example fromEthics 101: The Drowning Stranger.

"A man isdrowning near the end of the dock," the professor says. "Whatis your responsibility?"

"I didn'tpush him in!" the student says, with abrupt, vehement anger.

From theprofessor's perspective, this anger is strangely out of place, butfor the student it seems justified. The student, instinctively, heardthe question of responsibility as an accusation of blame. And, forwhat it's worth, the student's statement is correct. He didn't pushthe hypothetical stranger off of the hypothetical dock.

The problem, ofcourse, is that the student's response — standing by as thestranger drowns while adamantly insisting on his blamelessness — isitself so irresponsible as to incur the very guilt the student setout to deny. Very well, he didn't push the man in, but he did juststand there and watch the man drown without lifting a finger to savehim.

The reason that it's so important thatBear and Mimiru are the ones Tsukasa met is because of how theyrespond to questions like this. It isn't their fault, they didn'tpush him in, they are not charged with looking after people likeTsukasa, they are not system administrators or therapists, they arenot connected to Tsukasa in any way other than being strangers whosepaths crossed and they are under no more obligation to help him thananyone else who happens to bump into him.

And yet none of that seems to come upin their thinking.

One gets the impression that if eitherof them were asked the above question their answer would be somewhatdifferent:

“A man isdrowning ne-”

“I save him.”

“What?”

“I save him. Ifhe's close enough I offer an arm or a leg, making sure to keep enoughof my weight on the dock to avoid being pulled in, otherwise I runoff the end of the dock and dive in, not straight at him becausedrowning people have a tendency to anyone or anything that appears infront of us, and that would kill us both. I dive off to the side andthen circle round behind him. I grab him, my arms under his armpits,and lean back so that he's supported by my buoyancy, and then I startswimming back to to safety. With my legs; my arms are occupiedholding onto him.”

“But I haven'tasked the question yet.”

“I don't care. I've got a hold of him and I'm kicking back to shore. Or the dock. Whichever is closer.”

The exact details might change, it'dprobably be a good idea to ditch your shoes before attempting that,for example, so there might need to be some tweaking, but I picturethem responding something like that because we see what they thinktheir responsibility is. A stranger is trapped in an online game,what is your responsibility? Their answer seems to be to help him.

But it's not quite like that becausethere's not a lot of evidence they ever considered it as a question. Whether he's really unable to log out is a question they'll consider,whether they should be trying to help when they learn that's the casewould appear to be a foregone conclusion on their part.

The parallel that comes to mind isMalcolm Reynolds in Serenity. Mal doesn't leave River behind eventhough his life would have been a lot easier if he had. AfterwardJayne asks him, “In earnest Mal, why'd you bring her back?” andMal has no answer. He has no answer because he never thought it wasa question. He never considered other options, he never consideredthat there might be other options.

The same seems to be true of Bear andMimiru. They might have questions as to the factual accuracy ofTsukasa's situation, but they have no question about how to respondif it is accurate. And even when they doubt it's accuracy, they'restill concerned for him as a person.

The actual substance of theconversation is thin enough that I considered saving all of the abovefor a later instance, but it is the first time we see the interestthey're taking in Tsukasa and so it seemed simplest to say that thefirst time instead of trying to weigh which time it comes up is theideal time.

Anyway, substance. As I said, theconversation is already in progress when the scene starts, so wedon't know everything that was said. When we come in, we learn thatMimiru has found out that the Crimson Knights are looking for acat-character (it was looking for this character that originallybrought them into contact with Tsukasa) and Bear is convinced thatthey're taking the situation too seriously for it to just be that.

And then they come around to Tsukasa,which is presumably where the conversations started as well. At thevery least it had to have come up before because Bear knows thatTsukasa isn't able to log out (something Tsukasa has only toldMimiru) and brings it up as something he's concerned about. Both heand Mimiru know that should be impossible. The conversation endswith no conclusions.

Bear says he'll be thinking about itfor a while, and in so doing refers to himself as old. Mimiru hadn'tknown that he was old and, after bringing up that she hadn't know,points out that a character's appearance doesn't mean much. That'san important point because it gives a certain freedom from theexpectations of appearance and a certain anonymity.

Regarding expectations, one character started playing The World because it allows her to interact with people withoutthem judging her for her wheelchair. In the game she's just anotherperson so in the game she will never be treated as a wheelchair witha person attached, where in the real world that is sort of treatmentis unfortunately common.

Regarding anonymity, the way the gameworks means that age, race and gender are all things that belong tothe game character, not the player, which means that when one meetssomeone in the game they don't know if they're male or female, 9 or90, and they have no indication of race.

* Every episode starts with the sameopening credits which contain what is, in my opinion, the worst songin the entire series. On the other hand someone somewhere else saidit was the best, so opinions vary. At some point I'll get around toseeing what meaning, if any, can be pulled out of what's in theopening credits, but for the moment I'm just skipping them, whichmeans that, according to my DVD player, I'll be starting each episode one minute and thirty-five seconds in.

I'll probably also try to look atthe closing credits and the short thingy that indicates the halfwaypoint of an episode in the same post. I very much doubt that there'smuch to say about any of them, though I do think there might besomething to say about one aspect of the opening credits.

[Previous]

In Loving Memory of My Camera

2012-02-15T17:29:00.001-05:00

So, given that the one day sale on Twilight ended many hours ago, I probably shouldn't be leaving that as the top post. Unfortunately I've been in a not-so-good mood since yesterday around, say, 2:30 and it got worse in increments probably topping out as I was walking home, noting that sunset had come and gone, thinking that the lights reflected on the estuary I was walking over (on a bridge, I can -as yet- not walk on water) would make a wonderful picture, secure in the knowledge that I'd lost my camera.

Any lingering hope I might have had went away today when the company that runs the buses between the two campuses that make up my university sent me an email saying that they had looked, and found no camera. That means that everywhere that it could have been has been checked, and every associated lost and found has also been checked. No camera.

I love that camera.

I was going to post a picture of that model of camera, so that there might be a visual aid, but for reasons I do not fully understand that's not working so I'll just send you a link to the entry for that camera on Amazon which has pictures of the model of camera, picture taken by such cameras, and a large amount of verbiage describing just how awesome it was. (I can sum it all up in five words: "It is an awesome camera.") And I lost it because I put it into a pocket that didn't really have enough room for it, then forgot about it. By the end of the day it was not in the pocket any longer.

It wasn't cheap either.

Anyway, after I realized it was lost I spent hours looking for it, decided that the world was mocking me because pretty everywhere I looked there was something to take a picture of, and have felt more or less like crap ever since. (Although there have been exceptions.)

Did I mention I miss my camera? Because, seriously, I miss that camera. The most annoying thing of all is that it was slightly damaged and still under warranty. It shouldn't have been with me in the first place, it should have been being repaired, but I forgot to bring it in the last time I went to the store. If I'd remembered to bring it, then not only would it not be lost, it would be in the process of being made better than it had been.

If you're going to buy Twilight, now is the time

2012-02-14T09:00:00.000-05:00

If you follow what I write about Twilight then you've probably already read this elsewhere since that's how I found out, but just in case you didn't, let it be known that Twilight on Kindle is on sale today.

63% off, one day only. (Also US only, so if you're not in the US and I just got your hopes up, sorry.)

So, if you find yourself intensely curious about where Snarky Twilight comes from, or what Edith and Ben differ from, this is probably the best deal you're likely to get. I've never owned a physical Kindle myself, but I know from experience that Kindle for the PC is both free and nice.

If I had 4,000 dollars

2012-02-12T22:00:00.001-05:00

So some of my problems are things that really reek of privilege. Even the big things like the increasingly likely possibility that I'll lose my house, can only be understood when one takes into account that I currently live here paying no expenses whatsoever and I have not one but two places I can move into (my sister's place and my father's place, neither of these is remotely optimal, but the options exist.) That's privilege.

But that pales in comparison to the privilege inherent in a problem like, "I've never been to Greece and am unlikely to go in the near future." To even consider that as a problem one has to have a pretty sizable distance from the real problems of life.

And yet, in May a Harvard outpost type thing is sending one of my teachers to Greece as the leader of a trip. The trip is being offered at cost, 4,000 dollars give or take (plus airfare both ways) depending on the fluctuations of the relative values of the Euro and the American dollar. The money doesn't need to be had until May, but a (relatively) small down payment is required on the 20th of this month and so if I can't figure out a way to come up with $4,000 by May in the next eight days then there's no reason to make the down payment which means I can't go. I consider this a problem.

Now at this point, if I were a reasonable person, I'd be thinking about the fact that even if I can somehow come up with a way to get the $4,000 that money would be better spent on trying to keep me in my house, and if I can't (which seems more likely) there's no point in worrying about it.

But the thing is, if this is to be the year when it all goes wrong and everything comes crashing down and I lose my house... I'd kind of like to go to Greece. And if it isn't, if I somehow manage to make things work, I'd still like to go to Greece.

No matter how right things might go in the next few months, the only way I could be sure I'll have the money then by the 20th of this month is if I get someone to promise to loan or give it to me. I don't know the odds of that, I figure they're pretty low, and it probably isn't a good idea. Even if it did happen, that would just mean more indebtedness to my family. They may have long since given up on the hope of me ever paying them back, but I haven't.

It also could mean bringing some pretty bad conflict down upon myself if I ask. The last thing anyone wants to think about right now is more costs. But I really want to go to Greece, and in the middle of a year that looks like it's going to be a pretty dark time for me, I could use some light.

Expect me to be using excessive profanity in about 8 days or so when any chance of going fails to come to pass. Actually, said profanity might only be spoken, in which case it wouldn't show up on the blog.

Twister Rewrites

2012-02-12T18:18:00.004-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]

Twister was on the other day. The male and female leads in Twister aren't that impressive as characters, and I feel so sorry of male lead's fiancee, but you know what I really like about Twister? The rest of the team. I wish there had been more of them. Whatshisname who makes the movie/television references ("The cone of silence"), whatshisface who figures out the directions, whatshername who hardly ever speaks and yet still manages to seem like a fun character. Even the really annoying guy who should under no circumstances have been the one poor fiancee had to sit with.

I think it would have been a much better movie if it had just been about the team doing what they did, instead of Jo manipulating Bill into getting back together both with her and with the team.

Also Jonas was very badly handled. If he'd made his big break by stealing their research or something, that would be one thing, but instead he got decent funding and actually built the thing Bill never got around to. Oh so very evil, that one. Clearly he must die by tornado. Sarcasm off, if he was going to be a jerk, there should have been reason to think of him as a jerk beyond, "He's funded," and even then death by tornado would be serious overkill.

Obviously my initial thought is to do a rewrite of Twister so that it isn't about getting (back) together at all. They're all already together as a team, and this is just the season when they finally have Dorothy. That's my primary suggestion, but if that's too extreme I offer a rewrite of Twister that keeps it closer to the original:

Bill is trying to get everything settled for his move to another field due in part to the fact that he's become disillusioned after Jonas stole their research and used it to get a grant they really could have used. After fighting for too long to get the credit he and his team deserved, and instead getting a reputation for being someone who tries to claim other people's work (discrediting his whole team in the process), he's burned out and ready to leave all this behind and has lined up the one job in meteorology he can still get, that of weatherman.

He's come back to disentangle the last of his finances from those of the team, which is now run by Jo. He's clearly depressed and Jo tries to convince him to stay around for a while in hopes it might cheer him up. When she shows him that they've finally built his dream sensor package, Dorothy, it gets him to stay for a little while.

As the movie progresses he gradually starts to reconnect with the entire team.

It also so happens that Jonas is in the area and they can interact in much the same way as in the actual movie, but in this case the reason for them despising each other isn't that Jonas is in it for the money, it's that he took their research, used it to secure a grant that should have been theirs, played the situation so well he made it look like they were trying to steal credit for his idea, and now he's managed to make a knock off of Dorothy that he's showing off to the news cameras which means that the same damn thing is happening all over again.

Because the focus isn't on a love triangle you can instead put it on the team as a whole, and in the course of seeing Bill reconnect with each of them you get to learn more about all of them and get a much better feel for their characters, you also see Bill become more alive as he goes from the isolated place in which he started the movie towards a place where he's surrounded by friends.

You can have pretty much the same events, so the ending would still be the tornado at movie theater, followed by the remains of the town, followed by going after the big one.

At which point Jonas doesn't die because that's just petty on the filmmakers' part. His driver listens to the warning and gets the hell out of there just in a nick of time to save them both. Jonas loses face when it is revealed (by the grateful driver) that he had his life saved by the person who he's been actively trying to ruin for the past few years (because if people took Bill seriously they might take his claim that Jonas stole his work seriously) and given that he didn't get the data and the poor team did, he's no longer the one the cameras follow.

The end.

Snarky Twilight - Lauren, Bella, and the Bank Job

2012-02-12T14:46:00.000-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[This came about when it was pointed out that the excerpt that inspired the previous post said Lauren lost fifteen thousand dollars.]

Lauren: I can't believe I lost fifteen hundred dollars.
Bella: Thousand.
Lauren: What?
Bella: Fifteen thousand dollars.
Lauren: No...
Bella: The guide says fifteen grand.
Lauren: Let me see that.
*reads*
Lauren: This can't be right. I might have been too excited for due diligence, but I wasn't that overeager and I've never been quite that reckless.
Bella: I have.
Lauren: Yeah, but... but you're the main character in a badly written book. The plot doesn't move if you're not reckless. What happened to me doesn't even factor into the plot.
Bella: Maybe the author just doesn't like you.
Lauren: I'm telling you, I didn't spend that much. *beat* Does this thing have an internet connection?
Bella: Yeah, the computer terminal's over there.
*Lauren goes, the keyboard is taken from a typewriter, she logs into her bank's website*
Lauren: (sounding defeated) Yup. Fifteen thousand less. That's... absurd.
Bella: Maybe they charged you ten times.
Lauren: Or added a zero.
*pause*
Lauren: How am I going to make that back? That's like 30% of the median annual household income.
Bella: Really?
Lauren: This is 2006 right?
Bella: I think so.
Lauren: Then it's a little over 29.86%, which is like 30%. The median annual household income is 50,233.
Bella: Did not know that.
Lauren: The question remains, how am I supposed to make up a loss like that?
Bella: Well... this is just a suggestion, but... we could rob a bank.
Lauren: What?
Bella: There are these evil Italian vampires, and we're in Italy, and presumably they keep their savings somewhere, so it seems that a logical solution would be to rob a bank.
Lauren: Evil Italian vampires?
Bella: Yeah, I'm not supposed to know about them yet, but
*Bella picks up the official illustrated guide*
Lauren: You've read the guide.
Bella: It makes things more bearable when you know what's coming.

And then they rob a bank, specifically safe-deposit boxes with diamonds in them. I picture Bella making announcements and Lauren translating them into Italian. She'd start by quoting Serenity, "This is a robbery but we're after is not yours."

-

[This was actually written earlier than the above, but would obviously take place after they'd stolen the evil vampires' diamonds:]

"We have millions of dollars in diamonds!"
"I only need 15,000 from my share."
"Seriously?"
"I just want to get back to where I started."
"Yeah, but... millions of dollars."
"I just want 15,000"
"Come on, you should at least get 100 grand for your troubles."
"Well... ok."

And then they work out what they'll charge per diamond based on what it takes to get that amount, and are thus selling them at well below their market value.

-

[Previous][Snarky Twilight Index]

Snarky Twilight - Lauren, Bella, and the Truck

2012-02-12T14:36:00.000-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[Apparently this would take place sometime during New Moon, it was inspired by an excerpt from The Twilight Saga: The Official Illustrated Guide. The excerpt reads:
Sometime during the summer following her junior year, Lauren was approached by an alleged modeling agent in a mall in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He told her she was a natural model, and Lauren agreed with him. The agent told her that if she cut her long hair into a shorter, edgier look and had some high-quality headshots taken, her future would be assured. Lauren followed his instructions -- spending three hundred dollars on a haircut and fifteen grand on pictures taken by the agent’s partner -- and never heard from the agent again.]

Lauren is sitting on the side of the road, dejected. Her previously long hair now short. Bella pulls up in her truck and gets out.
Lauren: (her voice is soft, weary) Hey Bella, I'm not really up for a standoff right now.
Bella: That's ok. I'm not looking for one.
*Bella sits next to Lauren*
Lauren: I've had a bad... week? Month? I don't even know. Everything seemed to be going so well and then it just...
*Lauren hangs her head*
Bella: I know.
*Lauren looks up quickly*
Lauren: You know? How could you know?
*Bella holds up a book*
Bella: It's in the guide.
Lauren: Can I see that?
*Bella hands it over*
Lauren: This is more than half my description. It's like it's the only important thing that ever happened in my life is getting ripped off. What the hell was the point of all this?
*pause*
Lauren: Please tell me it's relevant to the plot.
Bella: It doesn't seem to be.
Lauren: Fuckernutter.
*silence*
*Lauren goes back to hanging her head*
Bella: Lauren?
Lauren: Yes?
Bella: I know we're supposed to hate each other, but if there's anything I can do...
Lauren: That's very sweet, but I don't think there is.
Bella: Well is there anything you've been wanting to do?
Lauren: (even sadder) That's the worst part.
Bella: Sorry.
Lauren: No, you don't have to- it's not your fault. You couldn't have known.
*silence*
Lauren: It's just... I've always wanted to go to Italy, and I saved up enough to get there, but then this guy comes along and he really had me convinced I could be a model. I... I checked. I looked at his website, I scoped out his office, I didn't do as much as I should but he really looked legit and one of the things he said was that he could get me working in Italy. Venice, Florence, Milan, everything I'd ever wanted. So *sniffle* when I needed some money up front I took it out of my savings for the Italy trip because I was going to go there as a model anyway. And-
*Lauren looks at the ground in silence*
*Bella tries to reassure her with a hand on the shoulder*
Lauren: and now I don't have enough to go. I've been looking forward to it for a year.
Bella: Then the solution is obvious.
Lauren: No, it isn't.
Bella: We'll get you to Italy.
Lauren: How?
Bella: In my truck.
*Lauren just looks at Bella*
Bella: I'm serious.
Lauren: You do realize there's an ocean in the way, right?
Bella: You think in such two dimensional ways.
*more of Lauren just looking Bella*
Bella: What? The surface of a sphere is a two dimensional surface. It's not Euclidean but it's... never mind. Let me show you.
*Bella stands up and offers Lauren a hand*
*Lauren doesn't respond*
Bella: I promise I won't bite.
*Lauren accepts and they go to the truck*
*Bella opens the panel in the driver's side floor*
*Lauren looks down the shaft, then under the truck, then back down the shaft*
Lauren: How is this possible?
Bella: Oh that's just the start. Down the ladder, down the hall, hang a right, another hall, and we can start this truck on its way to Italy.
*Bella starts climbing into the truck*
Bella: Where did you want to go first?
*Bella disappears into the truck*
Bella: You coming?
Lauren: (to herself) What the hell. (to Bella) I'm coming.
*Lauren disappears into the truck*

-

[Snarky Twilight Index][Next]

.hack//Sign: Why Me?

2012-02-12T13:56:00.004-05:00

[This is, I suppose, a sort of theme post for .hack. It is not tied to any specific episode.]

Tsukasa asked, “Why me?” (In the dub, not the subtitles. Just go with me here.)

That question is somewhat difficult to answer. On one level, it had to be someone, and given a finite number of people someone has to be the best candidate. It could be that there's more than one such someone, but there has to be at least one person whom no one is a better choice than. It's just math.

On the other hand, of more than 20million people, is Tsukasa really the most... well, most what? What are the selection criteria?

My short answer is that's he's depressed, but I think there's a lot more to it than that.

It's often the case that protagonists are almost blank slates when they start a story. Consider Harry Potter and Bella Swan. When their stories open they've got no friends, no connections, nothing tying them to the world they've known. Bella's major discomfort in picking up everything and moving to Forks is that she's moving to Forks. There's nothing and no one in Phoenix that she doesn't want to leave behind. When Harry heads to Hogwarts he doesn't have anything that he's going to miss from his life before.

This simplifies storytelling, Bella doesn't have any friends from back home to stay in contact with, Harry isn't trying to explain that, no, he hasn't joined a cult, to his friend he's not allowed to reveal the wizarding world to. Neither of them is juggling old commitments with new. Neither of them is having longing for what was given up drag on their new shiny sparkly life.

But they could. Bella could have had friends. Harry could have had friends. Phoenix/Muggle friends would have changed the stories, but they wouldn't have invalidated them. Bella still could have snagged a jerkish vampire, Harry still could have been a wizard. They could have actually had lived in lives before they started their respective stories and still had their stories come to pass. Tsukasa couldn't.

It is my belief that if Tsukasa had had friends when the story started then Tsukasa wouldn't have been chosen. Someone else would have. Someone more like Bella and Harry in that respect.

If he had friends online then he'd have someone to turn to when things went wrong. Also, even if he'd never said where he lived it's possible that their past interactions would have given some indication. There would be a definite possibility for someone tracking down real world Tsukasa based on that. Without that tracking down the body outside of the game becomes a much more difficult proposition. Definitely not impossible, as we shall see, but significantly more improbable.

If she had friends offline then there would be something to go back to. Ditching the real world and accepting that being trapped in the game wasn't a problem likely wouldn't happen, or at least not so easily. Also she might have invited one or more them to play the game with her. That would have changed everything in a way I don't think DVL* would have allowed.

Tsukasa has absolutely no one passing him information from the outside world, he doesn't even know that his body is in a coma. Hell, for all he knows he's been transported into the game body and soul. If he'd had someone telling him, “Hey I just visited your body in the hospital and you really don't look so good,” that might have given him reason to want to get back to the real world because it would indicate that his absence is harmful.

More than that I think one of the most important things in choosing Tsukasa was that Tsukasa had nothing positive to build on. The only indication we ever have of someone taking notice of the Tsukasa in the game before the show starts is when he was seen with Macha, and in that case it was Macha, being a conspicuous anthropomorphic cat in a pointy hat, that attracted the attention. For everyone else there's a prior history (though in Mimiru's case you have to wait until a bonus episode to learn about it) friends that they've had, connections they've made. Tsukasa has nothing.

The only time Tsukasa has anything approaching a happy memory (from on or offline) is when he's reminded of movies his mother liked, and that's quickly overpowered by the fact that memories tied to his mother make him sad as she's long dead.

He has nothing to look back to. He doesn't have friends, he doesn't have connections, he doesn't have joy. When things get bad he can't go to his happy place because he doesn't have a happy place. I think that's why he was chosen.

That he's susceptible to depression and has a lot of painful memories to draw on is certainly a part of it, but I think it's the lack of good more than than presence of bad that made Tsukasa be the one picked rather than the millions of other options. Others amoung those millions have probably had to face things worse than Tsukasa ever approached**, but Tsukasa has just the right mix of trauma, sadness, and a lack of positive things to make him the perfect candidate.

Because he's lived a pretty well joyless life up to this point, any bit of happiness that Tsukasa has, any good thing in his life, is going to be built up in The World after the series starts. That means that it can be destroyed in The World. It means that if you control the game you control Tsukasa's emotional well being. He has no friends, he has no positive history, he has no happy place to go to when times are rough. He has no tether.

That's my best guess. It definitely wasn't an accident that he was picked. By the end you'll see indication that this wasn't random, he was singled out. But you never get the full thought process behind it. You can only speculate, and this is my speculation.

He's completely on his own with nothing to hold him steady. That makes him an ideal person to manipulate. Control the game and it would be the easiest thing in the world to build him up and then send him into a shattering fall. But you can't control the game. The game is full of people, and people are not pawns that can be moved about the board as one pleases.

DVL should know that better than most, she was never supposed to be evil. She didn't fall into line, and neither will those she attempts to force into her desired narrative. That's where the story happens.

* Disembodied Voice Lady. Try to get used to the abbreviation because I will be sticking with it.

** That said, I don't want to minimize what Tsukasa has had to face. Tsukasa has faced the loss of a family member, abuse (including but not limited to physical abuse) from the parent who remained, is in an incredibly unpleasant and fragile place emotionally, and I've just spent five posts talking about an episode where his most consistent reaction was to assume that any newly arrived person on the scene was going to hurt him.

I may resist concluding that Tsukasa has had to face the single worst life of everyone who has logged onto The World, but I want to be very clear that Tsukasa has had a very bad life. Worse than anyone should ever have to bear. When approaching the question of why him instead of someone else it makes a certain amount of sense to try to find something approaching an objective standard for who has it worst, in any other situation it does not.

Tsukasa has had to face worse than anyone should ever have to face and in almost every conceivable context it is entirely unhelpful to respond to that by asking, “Does anyone else have it worse?” As someone recently pointed out, the worst thing that's ever happened to you is the worst thing that's ever happened to you regardless of what may or may not have happened to someone else.

[Previous][Next]

.hack//Sign: In which I argue with a disembodied voice

2012-02-11T22:24:00.000-05:00

.hack recap: Tsukasa woke up in painand with memory loss within a videogame known as The World. He hehas spent most of his time avoiding human contact, and he is unableto log out. It has been suggested to him that he should turn off hiscomputer which would have the effect of logging him out. The CrimsonKnights tried to talk to Tsukasa about a character who looks like acat, but he ran away. Their leader Subaru is concerned thatsomething is going wrong with The World.

(I recommend actually buying .hack//Sign since my words don't really do it justice. One can get either the DVD this episode is on, or the full series as a set.)

.hack//Sign, Episode 1: 15:06 to end

Lady Subaru and Silver Knight go totalk to a user who has recently had some data damaged. I've justrealized that every time I previously saw this scene I misinterpretedwhere the characters were standing, which throws a serious wrench inthe tangent I planned to embrace, but that's not important right now.

What is important is that the userthey're talking to is sure that the damage was caused by an item hisfriend got from a suspicious character. That character being the catTsukasa was seen with. Tsukasa was the only lead the knights had onsaid cat, so now they have another reason to try to track him down. They don't even know whether the cat is male or female. (EverythingI read says female, I don't remember it being specifically addressed,though. Possibly the indications were lost in translation.)

Then we return to Tsukasa, he'sreturning to the place where he first woke up, and going over hissituation in his head. He's not in front of a computer terminal,which means he can't reset the computer terminal. Thus that will notlog him out. It also brings of the question of where the Hell he is. It's a question he can't answer.

It's not an easy question even ifyou've seen the series because it requires you to ponder metaphysicsfor a moment. Tsukasa is not in his body anymore, he's in the game,but he's not in the game as programmed because he's able toexperience things that have never been programmed (like pain) so he'smore in the ideal of the game, the imaginary world that the game is supposed tobe simulating. The idea of The World in a form that is tangible tohim.

Like I said, metaphysics. As to wherehis body is, we'll get to that by the end of the post.

Anyway, he remembers that he opened thetreasure chest at the end of the dungeon, and that afterwardsomething painful happened, and as he tries to figure out what thatis, who should appear but an anthropomorphic cat in a pointy hat.

Tsukasa remembers the cat's name,“Macha,” and tries to run up to the cat and ask it what to do. The cat disappears (after licking the treasure chest, which is justweird.) Tsukasa opens the chest, a stone tablet appears, Tsukasatouches it, and we meet one of the most important characters in theseries.

The air tablet glow yellow, and adisembodied female voice says:

I've been waiting for you forsuch a long time. I need you just as you need me. Let us walktogether. As long as we walk together, I shall protect you.

Everybody say, “Hi,” to disembodiedvoice lady (DVL).*

I have some points of disagreement withDVL here. First, she hasn't been waiting, she's been scheming andplotting and conniving and the truth is that this is at least plan Bso she's actually been trying other things before settling on thiscourse of action.

Second, she might need him, thoughthat's because she chose him, but he really doesn't need her. Heneeds a lot of things, she is not one of them. Third, that whole, “Iwill protect you,” think is almost certainly a lie. The only wayit might not be is because I'm not sure how one walks with adisembodied voice in the first place. So maybe she can claim thatthat one wasn't a lie because she wasn't actually walking with himwhen that protection abruptly ended.

Regardless, the light, the voice, andthe stone tablet all disappear leaving Tsukasa to ponder what he jusheard.

Tsukasa starts to walk out, butdiscovers the exit blocked by Silver Knight. He has a moment offear, then pulls out his teleportation flute (sprite ocarina) only tobe informed that Sliver Knight has planned ahead and set up a barrierto prevent that from working.

Tsuksas runs like Hell and the firstfight scene has begun. The first thing to notice is how thedifferent their power levels are, even with a significant head startthe running Tsukasa is overtaken by Silver Knight in a single leap. When it gets into swinging swords and staffs, Tsukasa is just as fast(which is why he isn't sliced up, he can block and dodge) but afterTsukasa twice refuses to tell about Macha you see what a differencetheir relative strength makes.

Tsukasa and Sliver Knight are lockedsword against staff and Silver Knight simply pushes. Tsukasa is tooweak to stand against that and soon finds himself slammed up againsta wall. Then he falls to the ground in pain and has difficultyforcing himself to move. This is, I have to say, what I imaginehappening to me if I ever find myself in an action story kind ofsituation.

Push, bang: wall, thud: ground, ow:pain.

Sliver Knight doesn't know Tsukasa canfeel pain or be incapacitated by being smashed into a wall, oranything like that. He orders Tsukasa to get up and charges whenTsukasa fails to comply.

Tsukasa is rescued by a sort ofgelatinous amorphous blob which knocks Silver Knight off his feet andthen quickly forms itself into a sort of barbell shape with a largemetal ring at the center of the bar.

The Sliver Knight doesn't recognizethis monster and that's significant. There is only one character inthe whole of the show that we explicitly know read the manual andSilver Knight is that character. He is familiar with the monsters inthe game and this is not amoung them. This is not supposed to bethere and he's taken completely off guard. Even so, he gets up andprepares to fight and when the monster attacks by firing a sharp lineof what I suppose is the goo it's made up of given pointy linearform, he tries to block with his sword.

That utterly fails to work as the lineshoots right through his sword and right through him.

He's lifted off the ground and, whilehe shouts in apparent pain, light and numbers appear in the airaround him. This is another thing that shouldn't be in the game. The game is in a sword and monster world. There's no place forfloating ones and zeros. If not for the fact that he's busy beingattacked, he'd probably notice this as another sign that somethingisn't as it should be.

The character dies, which is marked bythe character turning gray, and falls to the ground.

The monster, which we'll later learn iscalled the Guardian (spoken in English whether listening in Englishor Japanese) comes over to Tsukasa who is appropriately terrified ofit. From one of the spheres that make it up it forms a sort of snoutwith which to sniff him and delver an pretty unique sounding call,before evaporating into nothing.

Tsukasa realizes that this probably isrelated to the promise that he'd be protected.

Then he goes off to Venice (Mac Anu) tothink things over. It's night. He's accepted the fact that he's inthe game. He isn't going to dwell on the fact that he can't log out. He isn't going to think about the fact that he doesn't want to. He's going to accept that he's in The Word instead of the real world.

After all, then I don't have toreturn to that ludicrous world.

Given what Tsukasa has to return to onthe outside, I would have accepted “craptastic” as an entirelyappropriate choice of adjective.

Anyway, the beetle which hasperiodically shown up when Tsukasa was being contemplative returns,and Tuskasa stands up. He concludes it's not so bad and brings his staffdown right on top of the beetle. I don't think he was necessarilytrying to do that, he wasn't actually shown looking down at it at thetime. I'm sure that one could find symbolic importance for thebeetle, it seems to cry out for that, but I'm just going to go on tothe next scene.

You don't actually see the staff hitthe beetle, instead the scene immediately cuts with a dramatic toneto red flashing lights and a siren, first outside, then inside withthe light coming through a door. This is your first glimpse of thereal world and you see a teenage girl unconscious on the floor. Herheadset for the game on the ground near her head.

The show will take a long time to tellyou for sure who this person is, I've decided to go the spoiler routeso I'm just going to come out and say it's Tsukasa. The first twoshots of her (first her hand, then her face) are exactly the same asthe first two shots of Tsukasa at the beginning of the show. The cutindicates we're probably looking at Tsukasa.

The very next episode will cast doubton that by letting us know that Silver Knight was found unconsciousin front of his computer after the Guardian got him. (He gotbetter.) That brings up the possibility the girl was him. Whensomeone looking for Tsukasa tracks down the girl, Tsukasa is asked,“Are you a girl in the real world?” and answers no. Since hewasn't lying it's assumed the lead was a dead end and the search forthe real Tsukasa is back to square one.

It will be a while longer still beforethey conclude that the girl is in fact Tsukasa, and longer stillbefore Tsukasa realizes that in the real world he is a she.

I've put a lot of thought into pronounsas a result of this. The game character Tsukasa is male, and Tsukasa(character and person) thinks he's male in the real world for most ofthe show, so I'm going to stick with male pronouns.

I don't get the impression that Tsukasahas a strong gender identity. When the revelation comes theconcern doesn't seem to be about gender at all. It's about how thatmight change relationships and the fact that it means memories werefalse. Tsukasa seems to be content to be whatever gender his body happens resemble.

This obviously also has some effects onhow one interprets the series. For example, if Tsukasa is considered female thenthe series passes the Bechdel test almost constantly, if Tsukasa ismale then it still passes, but far less often. Even conversationshe's not a part of tend to be about him as the series is very muchhis story. Given his male character model, the fact he thinks he'smale most of the series, and the fact that his lack of any stronggender identity means he isn't strongly identifying as female, I'mpersonally going to be considering him male except when otherwisenoted.

Now that we've gotten through the introduction I think I'll have significantly more interesting things to say in the future. That said, this one episode took me two weeks, so this is going very slowly. I've already written out a post for something that happens in episode 14, at this rate we should start episode 14 in the week starting July 29th. I'm not sure if I should post out of order things when I do them, or wait until they actually come up.

* She actually has a name, but thatname is never uttered in the main series and only mentioned inpassing in the bonus coda episode. I've decided not to use itbecause the name caries with it a lot of connotations thatreally don't come up in the series given that in the series she neverhas a name. Thus she will remain DVL. If you're really interestedin what her name is (rot13ing for no good reason whatsoever) it'sZbetnan and if you can use that name post in, post out over and overand over again without ending up with very strong connotation ofNeguhevna legend then you're probably better at keeping things inyour head separate than I think I would be.

[Previous][Next]

Moneyball and Breaking Dawn

2012-02-11T10:36:00.001-05:00

(Trigger Warning for childbirth, specifically death in childbirth. I won't go into any more detail than I just did, but I didn't want it to come out of nowhere. Also Spoilers for both movies.)

A couple days ago Amazon told me aboutits top selling products in DVD, two stood out to me (mostly becauseI'd never even heard of the rest.) One was The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 1, which I have not seen but did follow Ana Mardoll's live sporking of, the other was Moneyball which I haveseen.

I've been thinking of the two moviesever since. Since I haven't actually seen Breaking Dawn, I could beway off on all parts of this that relate to that.

Even though Moneyball doesn't pass the Bechdel test, even though it only has three female characters that Iremember and two of them were barely in it, even though it's prettymuch entirely about men working at a male team in a male league, Ithink that it probably does somewhat better on the things it saysabout female people.

Moneyball says that if you're a girlyou can play the guitar and do it well. Breaking Dawn says that ifyou're a young woman you can get married (to someone who doesn'trespect you or your ability to make decisions for yourself, and your inlaws will push you around regarding the wedding) get pregnant, die inchildbirth, and be reincarnated as a stagnant being defined in largepart by a lack of goals or ambition. I can't speak for others, butgiven those options I think I'd prefer the guitar.

It's not that there's anything wrongwith getting married and having a kid, and there's a decent chancethat the girl from Moneyball will do one or both of those thingslater on, but while she's still a child she's managed to do somethingBella Swan and the ones who sparkle never really do: she's foundsomething that she cares about, something that she likes doing, andshe's doing it. She's playing a guitar.

It's such a small thing, but it makes a big difference to me. The movie was not, by any stretch of the imagination, about the girl. It was about her dad. Yet when she does step into the story we see her doing something for herself. When the two of them go out together it's guitar shopping because that's what she wants. She found something she likes and is doing it.

Bella is not about to start doing that,and I think that's a problem. I don't mean that Bella should go outand form a musical group (Bella Swan and the Sparkles). I'm talking more along the lines of hobby and guitar certainly doesn't have to be her thing, but it would be nice if she had foundsomething. Anything. From what I personally know of Twilight, and what I've been told about it by others, we never see that. Instead someone with a lot of apathy flavoredonly by large quantities of looking down at others joins a tribe,and indeed species, whose defining characteristic seems to be thatthey don't care except when it comes to noting their own superiority. That's not a positive message in my opinion.

There's also a class divide in the twomovies. Twilight is about people who own their own island and haveprivilege like you wouldn't believe. Moneyball is about people whoare struggling to cope with a lack of resources when surrounded byand forced to compete with those who have so much more. It's alsoabout people who were passed over, looked down on, rejected anddiscounted. Its about people who, within their field at least, have theopposite of privilege.

Moneyball is based on a true story whereTwilight was imported from the Cthulhu Mythos.

And, breaking away from Breaking Dawnhere, Moneyball has really solidified in me my belief thatchampionships aren't that important. This definitely goes against alot of thinking in sports, but I find that for me who wins the lastgame isn't so important.

There's a reason that it's the WorldSeries rather than the Championship Game. Deciding whois the best team with one game would be silly. One game is a fluke. In itself a game means nothing. You might as well decide the outcomeon a single inning for all of the sense it makes. You have to lookat things in aggregate to see which team is actually better, hencethe use of a series rather than a game. But at the same time, isn'tone series pretty damn small too, all things considered?

If a team were to win every single gamethey played in until reaching the World Series, which they lost threegames to four, that would be the most amazing record in all ofbaseball, it would be nearly impossibly good, but at the end of theday the story would be about how they weren't the best after all, andprobably some narrative about how they choked when the stakes gothigh.

That will almost certainly neverhappen, where World Series wins come like clockwork. Barring labordisputes or, I suppose, giant unprecedented catastrophe you can counton a World Series wins happening at a rate of one every singleyear. It's not rare, it's not all that special when you think aboutit. Someone has to win. Even if every team in baseball were tosuck, someone has to win.

Yet that's where the focus lies. Fourto seven games at the end of the baseball season. When my dad foundout that I might be going to see Moneyball he pointed out that theteam in question didn't win. They lost. So what could they possiblyhave accomplished? He repeated that reminder (Which bioled down to,“They didn't win anything. They lost.”) on multiple occasionseven after I watched a movie about a season in which they didn't winwhich pointed out rather clearly that they didn't win.

They didn't win in the end, and forsome people that's all that matters.

It's in the film itself. The maincharacter will claim that if they don't win everything then nothingthey did will matter, they will be discounted, they will be brushedoff, it will all be for nothing because the only thing that mattersis winning the last game. There is an attempt to convince himotherwise, and the existence of the movie seems to indicate that hisfears of being totally dismissed were misplaced, but I don't thinkthere's much indication that he ever stopped thinking that it onlymatters if you end up champion.

Personally I'm much more impressed withthe middle. There have been 107 World Series winners, in 93 moreyears there will be 200. Should baseball endure this will continueon for centuries like clockwork. The earth has made a circuit aroundthe sun; someone has won the World Series. How many times has therebeen a 20 game winning streak? Can we predict when the next one willhappen? (No.)

That's more interesting to me. Not,“We won that thing that's won once a year,” but, “We did thatimpressive thing that hardly ever happens/has never happened before.” The Oakland As were the first, and thus far only, team in theAmerican League to win twenty straight games. The record in all ofMajor League Baseball is 21 (unless you put your fingers in yourears, say, “I'm not listening,” and insist that there's no suchthing as tie game, in that case it's 26.) It's not something thathappens much, it is something that to my eyes is a lot moreimpressive than doing that thing that's done every single year.

Anyway, Moneyball, I recommend it. It's a good movie. Even if you know nothing about baseball.

Edith and Ben - Words, Music, and a Trip to the Nurse in the Middle

2012-02-09T19:45:00.001-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]

Edith came up to us and asked, “Whither are you going?”

I tried not to laugh, “Did you just say 'Whither'?”

“Yeah. 'Whence do you come?' 'Where are you? 'Whither are you going?” Motion from is-” she closed her eyes, tensed for a moment, and then said, “Never mind.” After a short pause she asked, “What's up?”

“Apparently I'm not good with blood either.” I was going to leave it at that, but couldn't resist adding, “So I go to yonder nurse's office,” making a gesture in a vague direction.

“Actually...” Edith said.

“It's that way,” Angel said, pointing significantly to the left of where I had gestured. Mind you he was pointing through a building that we'd have to walk around, so I think my lack of knowledge of the true direction was defensible.

I shrugged, “That's why I have a guide,” I pointed to Angel.

Edith said to Angel, “I can take him the rest of the way, if you want to get back to class.”

Angel looked to me for confirmation, “It's fine by me,” I said, and so he headed back, and Edith and I started to walk together.

“So, 'Whither'?” I asked.

“Yes. Whither. 'Whither are you going?' 'Oh, hither and thither.'”

“Thither?” I'd never even heard that word before, and in all honesty I suspected she was making it up.

“Yes!” She seemed frustrated. “This is not that difficult. You've got three beginnings, wh, th, and h. you've got three endings: ence, ere, and ither. Put them together and you get words. Words like there, and hence, and where. If you know Where, here, and there, then you know the beginnings already. So you just need to know that ence means motion from, ere doesn't imply motion, and ither means motion towards.

“I seriously do not get why everyone treats this as if it's some incomprehensible thing. It's very simple and not doing it is just as wrong as refusing to distinguish between 'I' and 'me'. 'Me going to the store.' 'Someone told I.' 'Me is happy.' 'Between you and I'.” She slowed her pace. “This is slippery.”

She held my hand and my upper arm to steady me until we'd moved passed the offending spot.

I picked up the conversation where we left off. “Shakespeare says, 'Between you and I'.”

“Yes, he does. He's wrong.”

That made me smile, and we were silent for a bit. Then she asked, “So what happened in class?” I must have done something because she immediately added, “You don't have to tell me. If you're not comfortable telling me, don't tell me.”

“No, I can... I can tell you. I was fine until right up to when it started, then I smelled the blood-”

“Really?”

“Yeah, why?”

“If there was enough blood in a blood-typing lab for you to smell it, that means someone did something very wrong. They should probably be heading to the nurse.”

“Well there was no screaming.” She shrugged, I continued, “I smelled the blood and I sort of … uh … flashed back to the van. And Tricia. And … stuff.” And I started to again.

Edith … not quite put her arm around me, but sort of touched me on my shoulder opposite her. It was reassuring, and she said, “It's alright,” with enough conviction that I actually believed her.

We walked the rest of the way in silence. When we got to the nurses office Edith said, “Be careful because there's a step up here,” which I heard, processed, and tried to take into account, and yet I still managed to trip. Edith caught me before I could fall flat on my face. “I told you to be careful.” The words could have been hurtful, or condescending, or any number of bad things, but the way she said them was light, almost playful, and took some of the edge off of almost meeting the ground face first.

When the nurse asked why I was there I sort of looked at my feet and said, “It's complicated,” and then Edith blurted out, “It's post traumatic stress.” I didn't even realize I was moving my head, but suddenly I was looking at her. “If I've learned nothing else from having a doctor for a mother it's that you should just come out and say what's wrong.” I didn't say anything. “Seriously, it works better that way.”

The nurse said to Edith, “You can go back to class.”

“I actually don't have class right now.” The nurse looked annoyed and Edith held up her hands in a, 'It's not what you think, give me a moment to explain,' gesture. “I only bring that up because in addition to being excused from blood typing I also don't need to be in my next class -it's just there to work on a project I already finished- which means that,” she turned to me, “if you need a ride home I can provide it.” She turned back to the nurse, “That was all I wanted to say. Going now.” And she left.

The basic verdict from the trip to the nurse was that we'd take a wait and see approach. If it was a one time thing then no problem, if not I was to come back and see her immediately. When she asked me if I'd be alright for my next class, which was gym, otherwise known as 'Ben repeatedly gets into fights with the ground, the ground always wins', the look on my face must have been pretty bad because she said, “So, that's a no,” and asked, “Do you need to call for a ride home?”

I told her I didn't and headed out. Edith was waiting. “Did you want a ride?”

“Your car, or my truck?”

“Well, as much as I love your truck, my car has a cd player and your truck predates the 8 track by more than ten years.”

“Your car then?”

“That's what I was thinking.”

When she turned on the car the music that started playing was familiar, and I struggled to figure out where I knew it from. Finally I asked, “Is this Ella Fitzgerald?”

Edith seemed surprised. “Yeah. Do you like her?”

“No. Well, yes. I suppose I do, but it's not the sort of thing I seek out. My tastes tend to be a generation later.”

“Like what?”

“Uh,” I'd never actually been asked that before and so I'd never really had to organize it in my head beyond, 'Music I like.' “The Beatles, CCR, Crosby, Stills, and Nash, Young can tag along I suppose but he's useless on his own. The Band.” I noticed that it seemed to be a very male list, and that wasn't right, so I thought of some of the women whose music I liked, “Joni Mitchel, Janice Joplin, Janice Ian, Carly Simon, Carol King,” and Carol King wrote one of my favorite songs of all time, but she didn't sing it, so naturally I thought of the band that did: “Herman's Hermits.”

“You like Herman's Hermits?”

“You've heard of Herman's Hermits?”

“I love Herman's Hermits. There's a CD in the glove compartment.”

Sure enough, there was.

Woke up this mornin' feelin' fine
There's something special on my mind
...

-

[Edith and Ben Index]

Twilight - Prattle

2012-02-09T19:34:00.002-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[Something I wrote up when I was noting the degree to which Bella ignores Jessica. Jessica could be a saint without Bella ever noticing it.]

So then I was all like: "Demons get out!" and they ran away. After that I was turning water into wine because... Are you listening? You're not, are you?

I cured a leper. Did you hear me? I cured leprosy just by putting my hands on someone.

IS ANYONE FUCKING LISTENING? God Damn It! *Looks up* Not seriously. Sorry. Shouldn't have used your name like that. It's just... *still looking up* I walked on water yesterday and no one noticed. I multiplied loaves and tunafish and didn't even get a, "Hey, that's a neat trick." I singlehandedly healed everyone who was injured on the day that school should have been canceled because of the icing. Not an eyebrow raised.

What do I have to do to get noticed around here?

*looks around*

(To Bella:) Edward Cullen is staring at you again. I wonder why he's sitting alone today.

*Bella's head snaps up, she's instantly paying attention*

*It is not lost on Jessica that this, of all the things she's said, is what got Bella's attention*

(under her breath:) Oh for the love of...

-

[Twilight Index]

Twilight - Bella's mother is not like a lobster.

2012-02-09T19:29:00.001-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[Bella initially describes her mother in terms of difference from herself, description by difference made me think of Douglas Adams*, and that got me imagining if instead of choosing herself as a starting point, she had chosen a lobster.]

"What is your mother like?" he asked me suddenly.

"She is almost wholly unlike a lobster. She is much larger than a lobster, she has a notable lack of claws, her eyes are not on stalks and her nose is not a sharp stabby looking point. Her exterior is the color of flesh rather than exoskeleton. It is likewise quite soft. The long fur that sprouts from her head is entirely unlobsterlike in all possible ways.

"She does not spend a majority of her time under water and does not do lobstery things. She is, as I said, almost wholly unlike a lobster."

-

[* Specifically the space ship that didn't look like a lobster in the short story Young Zaphod Plays It Safe, but "The ships hung in the sky in much the same way that bricks don't," from the first book is another good example of the sort of description by difference he does. Both are a part of this volume, which I recommend if you don't already have them.]

-

[Twilight Index]

Snarky Twilght - Discovery of the Tardis Truck

2012-02-09T19:15:00.002-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]

This is just some explanation of a small part of what happened to Bella between the post-nurse parking lot scene part one and the post nurse parking lot scene part two. Also a bit on what she's thinking afterwards.

-

I'm thinking that she's decided to go through Twilight just to prove to herself that she can, and because unlike actual Bella she has made friends there, but whenever it gets to be too much she'd go off for a vacation elsewhere. In her truck.

You see she thought she lost her truck and it was very sad, and then she was in a museum in the distant future. And suddenly it was a case of:

Bella: Truck?
*Runs over to it*
Bella: It is you. I thought I lost you.
Museum worker: You can't touch the exhibits.
Bella: Have you been waiting all this time?
*Bella gets into the truck*
Bella: I missed you so much and-
*Hollow sound*
Bella: Huh? *looks* There shouldn't be a panel here.
Museum Worker: Miss I have to ask you to get out of the exhibit.
*Bella is now upside down, examining the floor*
Bella: What's under this?
*Bella pulls on the panel*
Museum Worker: You can't do that! Security is on its way already so please make it easy on yourself and-
Museum Worker and Bella in unison as Bella discovers an impossibly large cavity under the floor panel: What the hell?
*Bella disappears in the hole, then pops her head back up*
Bella: I'll just be a minute.
*Bella pulls the panel back into place over the hole, and a locking sound is heard*
*Security arrives, the Museum worker doesn't even attempt to explain what happened, pretends Bella ran away*

Inside the truck.
*Bella walks around a maze of passageways and chambers.*
Bella: You have changed my friend.
*Comes to a control room, a familiar style of hexagonal console made out of the same rusted metal as her truck*
Bella: I like it.
*checks the readouts on the controls*
Bella: Is this because of the coral I left in the glove compartment, by any chance?

-

Because ... why not? I have no justification for making Bella's truck into a Tardis other than:
1 She's not going to want to travel space and time without her truck.
2 I think it would be cool.
3 Nothing else.

-

[Snarky Twilight Index]

Snarky Twilight - Post Nurse Parking lot, Part 2

2012-02-09T19:05:00.000-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]

This is going to require a bit of explanation. You see after reading the context many times, it finally hit me:

We were near the parking lot now. I veered left, toward my truck. Something caught my jacket, yanking me back.

Bella, there's a time sucking bug on your back trying to destroy your life by altering an seemingly minor event. You have to fight it. Not only will your life be horrible if let it win, so to will the world be undone. The universe itself is at risk. The stars will go out. You have have to fight it. TURN LEFT!

And then I sort of ran with that crossover.

This picks up from where the previous one left off.

-

Edward returns to his car, and watches Bella drive away.
Bella: I've had some time to think it over and-
Edward: What the Hell?!
Bella: Do you overreact to everything? I've had some time to-
Edward: How the hell did you get here?
Bella: By plane. A four hour flight to Seattle, an hour to Port Angles, then an hour drive to Forks. We established all of this in the first chapter and this is a really weird time to be rehashing the logistics of it all. Now as I was-
Edward: No. How did you get in the passenger seat of my car?
Bella: Through the door. Is that what you're so worked up about?
Edward: But you just drove away.
Bella: Did I? I suppose I did. Anyway, I've had some time to think things over and-
Edward: You can't drive away and be in my car-
Bella: Evidence points to the contrary, and if you interrupt me again you'll make me angry. You wouldn't like me when I'm angry.
Edward: Fine. What did you want to say?
Bella: What I wanted to say is that I've had a long time to think about what you said about the plot, and needing to progress it, and so forth. I took some time off, I did some soul searching, I met someone, someone who showed me that non-human men are capable of treating me with dignity and respect, I traveled, I deposed some dictators, saved some worlds.
- - - I've seen things you couldn't possibly imagine, though some of them were disappointing. Went to both shoulders of Orion, no attack ships on fire. Was very much let down. Still there was wonder there that I wish you could have seen. I wish you could have seen the vastness of space or the inside of a nebula, I wish you could see freedom emerge on a distant world or a march of lungfish pushing themselves up onto the land. I wish you could have sampled the sound of a black hole with me.
- - - I wish you could have because if you did then you'd finally understand how small you truly are. Sad little king of a sad little hill. I wish you could, if only for an instant, grasp the scope of the universe we find ourselves in because if you did then you'd understand how misplaced your arrogance is.
- - - And what I've come to realize is that I don't have to be here. There are any number of stories I could walk onto, there are any number of places I could go, and number of things I could do. I have options.
- - - But you don't.
- - - You're not welcome there. No one has a need of an insignificant bully who thinks he's the most important person in the world. No one is thinking, "What this story could use is some more Edward Cullen." You're nothing, and the truly sad thing is that it doesn't have to be that way.
- - - You could be the most important person in the world, just as anyone could be, and the only thing holding you back is the fact that you're convinced you already are. You're not. If you'd recognize that then you could change for the better, but as you are you're trapped in prison of self aggrandizing mediocrity. You've twisted yourself into a ball of meaningless arrogance and spite. You're nothing more than a petulant child who is so convinced he's already grown up that he never bothered to learn what growing up actually means.
- - - I pity you.
- - - Jessica is going to be a biochemist when she grows up. Eric wants to be a computer programmer specializing in games that can be used to teach children advanced mathematics in a way that's actually fun. Mike plans to run a local business. Angela is going to be a novelist. They're all going to be something, they're going to do something, they're going to matter. When will you start to matter? When are you going to make something of yourself?
- - - What do you want to be when you grow up Edward? You've had more time to ponder the question than most people have to live a life. Do you have any goals? No. And what have you done in that time? Nothing. Apart from saving me from the van, something the narrative forced you to do, can you name a single moment in your life when you actually mattered?
*pause*
Bella: So what I've decided is this. This story is my home and I'm not going to leave it right now because of someone like you. But if you want me to take you seriously, you had better convince me you're someone worth taking seriously. If you want me to listen to you then you're going to start saying some things that are worth hearing. If you want me to go along with the plot you had better show me that the plot is worthwhile.
- - - I care about the story enough that I'd rather not leave you in charge, but don't think that I can't leave. If I decide that I don't like it here, I have plenty of places I can go. Wheres and whens that are just waiting for exploring.
- - - I pity you, and that means I'm willing to try to help you improve, but don't confuse pity with licence. If you ever try to drag me around again I will test how vampires react to suns by dropping you into one.
- - - And, finally, I don't care what Claude says, Clair de Lune was better when it was Promenade Sentimentale. It's a damn shame he never released the original.
*Bella gets out of the car*
Bella (speaking through the window): If you want to be a main character try to be more interesting the inanimate objects in the story.
*Bella walks to her truck, which is not parked where it was earlier, and drives away.*
Edward finds his voice again: What. The. Fuck?

-

[Previous][Snarky Twilight Index]

Snarky Twilight - Post Nurse Parking lot, Part 1

2012-02-09T18:57:00.001-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[Partial credit has to go to TRiG for linking to this, but I think some of it is due to Bella simply being fed up. The pain text scene has Edward grabbing her by the clothing and dragging her across the parking lot, then threatening to do it again if she tried to escape. There comes a point where you have to change your story even if you haven't heard the song..]

Edward yanks Bella by her jacket, Bella responds with an elbow to his face. Unfortunately, Edward being a sparkle vampire I unfazed while Bella is the one to end up hurt.
Bella: Motherfucker!
Edward: Do you think I'm going to let you drive in your condition?
Bella: First off, I don't expect you to let me do anything. I'm going home. You don't have a say in the matter. Second, you may be forgetting that that my condition went away, we tricked the nurse because I didn't feel like going to gym. I note that the lying was entirely your idea so if you think you're occupying some sort of high ground think again. You're like a weight around my ankle pulling me down to deeper depths. I don't have to go, I could easily fight it and refuse your influence, but sometimes, as now, I go along anyway and I have to live with that. I shouldn't do it, I do anyway, and I take responsibility for it but that doesn't change the fact that you've got no standing to be acting superior.
- - - Third. You're a vampire. My truck: made of wood*. If you don't start respecting my personal space very soon I will kill you with my truck. I will pick it up and drop it on your head if I have to, and don't say I can't because that truck and I have done impossible things together before. We altered the laws of physics just so that the chains on the tires would be hidden until the proper time. Do you have any concept of what's involved in that? We looked at the molecules making up the universe and said, "I know that every law you are subject to says you should be vibrating this way and thus creating sounds and motion that indicates there are chains on the tires, but we'd prefer if you vibrated this other way which flies in the face of 13 billion years of established physical law.
- - - And it worked. That truck and I have done a lot together and if need be we'll add vampire destruction to that list of things because, as near as I can tell, it's high time this town had bit of pest control.
Edward: It doesn't matter what you say. The plot says that we ride in my car.
Bella: Well we've already established that ditching is healthy. I'm ditching. The plot will have to do without me today.
Edward: I'm still holding on to your jacket.
Bella: And if you make use of that fact I will run a scorched earth campaign on this entire narrative. I will tear this story apart page by page, line by line, word by word. And I've just decided that I won't actually kill you with a truck.
*Pause*
Bella: Tell me, are you familiar with the concept of, 'To the pain'?
Edward lets go.
Bella walks to her truck. She caresses the hood.
Bella: Hey truck, did you miss me? We are going to have fun today.

-

*It was the made in the last year they used wooden blocks as bed supports. Would that help in killing a vampire? No. Do I think it makes for a great line to use against Edward? Yes.

-

[Snarky Twilight Index][Next]

Who, Whom, and Wings

2012-02-09T18:51:00.000-05:00

[Randy Owens posted a link to an article and writing prompt on "who" and "whom" at a place called The Write Practice which is where this was originally posted. The observant reader will see slight flavors of this in a later Edith and Ben piece.]
[The prompt was: Write for fifteen minutes about a doctor/psychiatrist/veterinarian with an unusual patient.

Use who and whom properly as the bewildering situation unfolds.]

Angie was closing up when she heard the rear door open. The rear door that she'd just locked. As quietly as she could she went to her desk and took out the flashlight she kept for emergencies. She felt its weight, and concluded it would make a serviceable club. Then she moved toward the rear door.

“I'm not here to hurt you,” she heard his voice before she saw the man. He was mostly in shadow, what little of him she could see was illuminated by a streetlight shining through a window. His hand were empty, palms facing toward her.

She could see that he was unarmed, but that didn't mean he wasn't a threat. She kept her flashlight ready. “Who are you?”

“I'm someone who needs help.” She didn't disagree, the longer she looked at him the more convinced that he was injured and in pain. It wasn't any one thing, more his overall appearance. “I was hit by a car.”

“I'm a vet. If you're not a spaniel you don't belong here. Go to a hospital.”

“Doctors can't help me.”

“Why not?”

“Because I need someone, whom I can trust, whose training includes how to treat wings.” He took a pained step forward, and as he moved further into the light of the window Angie saw something that wan't possible. On his back were two giant wings. Mostly white, but stained with blood.

She struggled for words, she struggled to process anything. The flashlight hit the floor, but she didn't notice dropping it. “Who are you?”

“My name is Colin, we met once before.”

-

The lights were on, Colin was sitting on a table while Angie examined his wings. The left seemed fine. The right one not so much. Angie told Colin she'd never done anything like this before, he suggested she imagine he was a giant parakeet.

“It's broken. I'll have to set the bone.”

Colin sighed, “Great.”

“So, who hit you?”

“A jerk for whom nothing is sacred, least of all the traffic laws. I was- OW!”

“Sorry. I told you I had to set the bone.”

-

“So, where will you go?”

“Whither.”

“What?”

“'Whence did you come?' 'Where are you?' 'Whither will you go?' You should have said 'whither' not 'where'.”

“I'm not going to say that. That just sounds silly.” Colin stared at her. “Who says that?”

“I do.”

“The question stands: to what place are you going?”

“Probably into the woods. I'll find an isolated spot where there's no one by whom I will be seen.”

-

[Original Work Index]

Concerning myself, my lack of job, and my mental state

2012-02-08T22:42:00.000-05:00

So today I went to an office at my university that's supposed to help students get jobs because I'll be yelled at if I don't. I amnot convinced I am in anything like a position to hold a job. Icould probably show up for work every day, which is better than somecan claim, but when it comes actually doing work once I'm there …that'd be hit or miss. I don't have any personal experience beingemployed but I'm pretty sure, “I had a bad month,” is not aviable excuse for why you've not been doing your job.

Sometimes it's the case that the most Ican do is move a finger. Such times have become a lot lessboring since I got a laptop. Well, the ones when there's alaptop involved have at any rate. You'd be amazed the amount ofcontent one can access when all you can do is move a finger. At thevery least you can just have your finger on F5 and refresh a page tosee if anything new has been said.

Anyway, that in itself brings to mymind serious questions about the credibility of the idea I can get ajob. I can show up, I'm fairly good at that (though there are timeswhen that is not true), but actually working, I wish I could. Amoungother things, it would have made school much less of an, “I'malways on the edge of total failure,” kind of thing.

I also wonder somewhat about the jobmarket itself. If Fred Clark can't get a job, what hope is there forsomeone like me?

But apart from that there's also the waythings went down today and on days like it.

I went to the place, eventually. (As Isaid, showing up is one thing I can do with a reasonable degree ofsuccess.) Doing that first required me to look it up, find out itwas the right place, repeat that process because I'm always convincedthat I did something wrong and this need to reassure myself tends tomake me check things again and again, then I walked over to the doorto said place just to check it out and see if it looked like it couldbe the right place. My stuff was left where I had been sitting forthis checking, so I had to go back for it, of course.

There was a period of leaning on thewall, leaning on the table, leaning on the wall and the table at thesame time. There was some having my head in my hands. There wasdiscomfort and fear, there was a pervading sense of indescribableunease. Something like half an hour passed. But I had to get up andgo there, so first I went for water.

The fountain was gone. I should haveknown this. I think it was yesterday when I took pictures of thelack of fountain and fallen "out of order" sign. Why did I takepictures? Not sure. Something to do.

Anyway, I headed up to the next floor,I kept in contact with the wall or, where such things existed, thehandrail. It was used to support more weight than usual, and mysense of balance wasn't really there. I don't think I would have hadtrouble staying upright if there were no walls in reach to keep megrounded, but with the walls there I was definitely going to usethem, handrails too. Without them it would be almost like losingcontact with the world. I might be able to stay standing, but up anddown became much vaguer concepts and I don't think I was standingstraight for any part of this.

I don't know exactly how to describethe overall feeling, beyond the apprehension and whatnot, I'm temptedto say something like, “It didn't feel real,” but that's nottrue. It did feel real. It didn't feel right. Askew perhaps? I'mnot sure. Not my usual experience of reality, more like the bizarrequality things can take on when dealing with a severe lack of sleepand everything … changes. There's no doubt that everything isreal, but nothing about it seems the same. Especially, for me atleast, feeling. The world doesn't feel the same, I certainly don'tfeel the same.

Anyway, second floor drinking fountain. At first the water was warm and thus entirely unappetizing, then itimproved. As I headed back and opened the door to the stairwell Inoticed my hand. It was exactly where it was supposed to be doingexactly what it was supposed to be doing (it was opening the door)but it didn't feel like I was looking at a part of my own body, Ifelt entirely detached from it, as if I were looking at someoneelse's hand, say if someone had opened the door for me or if I werewatching a video that included a hand not my own.

Got down the stairs, managed to go tothe office, I spoke in soft words, barely above a whisper, shortsentences. I could barely speak. I just wanted to leave the wholetime. I have an appointment for Monday now.

This is how I deal with new tasks andcoming into contact with new people. This is a major success storyfor me. This is me functioning at my best. I really don't think Ican hold a job right now.

Interestingly, when talking about what I have to deal with, this is almost never what I'm talking about. I'm usually talking about the depressed mood, the total lack of ability to motivate myself, what we've been known to call the horizon effect* and various other things like that. Not so much any of what I just said about today.

Anyway, the solution to that seemsobvious: get treatment.

I mentioned once or twice before that Imight qualify for state run health insurance. Of course now thestate is considering cutting all health insurance for people like(adult males with no children) so it could be that even if I qualifynow it'll be taken away before I ever apply.

As for why I haven't applied. Itinvolves a phone call. Seems simple right?

I'll admit that there are probably someweeks that I forgot about it, but for months now there have been dayswhen the only thing I planned to accomplish in the entire day was tomake that phone call. I got up in the morning thinking, “Today Ineed to make that phone call,” and that was the only thing I wassupposed to do all day.

Didn't matter, still haven't been ableto do it.

This is not, so far as I can tell,normal. The inability to complete such a simple task is not part ofthe ordinary human experience. It is, in fact, what I want treatmentfor. Part of it at any rate. Its a symptom rather than a cause, butit's definitely something that's in there and hopefully somethingthat treatment can deal with. But the problem is that there's stillthe phone call now.

This is also a source of greatirritation for me because the person who got me the number knowsbetter than anyone what my situation is. She refused to make thephone call because it's my responsibility. On the one hand this isentirely true. It's not her job to look after me at this point inboth our lives. It is my responsibility. There's absolutely nothingrequiring her to have made the phone call for me and it could verywell be considered unreasonable for me to have wanted her to.

On the other hand, if one of thesymptoms I'm hoping to get treatment for is an inability to do basicthings like making phone calls, maybe it would be helpful to make itso that making a phone call wasn't one of the barriers to gettingthat treatment.

I sprained my ankle once. (Well, morethan once, but only once was it enough to merit a doctor visit andcrutches.) I don't remember people insisting that I carry heavythings. I could have. It was a load bearing sprain so I absolutelycould have carried heavy things even without crutches. Yet I don'tremember it happening. I think people consciously tried to reducethe effort I had to put into things even though those things werestill absolutely my responsibility.

I don't remember being forced to hop onmy sprained ankle before I was allowed treatment either.

Now if we make a comparison between thetwo there's no contest. Which is easier, carrying heavy things on asprained ankle, or making a single phone call? Carrying heavy thingson a sprained ankle. There is no question, there is no room forambiguity. It's much easier, and significantly more comfortable, toput weight on a sprained ankle than it is to make a phone call.

For most people this isn't the case,but for me it is and there's one person who absolutely knows that itis for me, and she's the one who refused to make a phone call for me. She's right that it's not her responsibility, but sometimes I feellike people, or at least family, should help out beyond theirresponsibility.

If instead of a phone call it had beensomething easy, like say carrying a 200 pound load 50 miles on asprained ankle or two, I'd be done by now. But it wasn't, it wassomething that is incredibly difficult for me and incredibly simplefor almost everyone else. To a certain extent it pisses me off thatsomeone who it is easy for, who knows how hard it is for me, decidedthat this was thing where she'd put her foot down and refuse to help.

Maybe it turns out that I don'tqualify, maybe it turns out that I do. Either way I could have knownthat last year if I'd had help with the phone call end of things. Instead I get trial by catch-22. If I didn't have problems withthings like phone calls I wouldn't be in such desperate need oftreatment, but I can't get treatment unless I can magically make itso I don't have problems with little things like phone calls. Beentrying to do that for ten years, hasn't worked yet.

When you have a sprained ankle peopletreat that minor inconvenience as if it's something worthy ofconsideration. When you have depression that prevents you fromcompleting even the most basic of tasks, people don't seem to give adamn.

While I certainly wouldn't have wantedto do without the crutches, I didn't need any special considerationwhen I sprained my ankle. With the depression I do need it, and I'mnot getting it. Bigger problem, smaller response.

I am no one's responsibility but myown, except in the larger sense that all are responsible for all, butit sure would be nice if I could get help. Not because I'm someone'sresponsibility, but instead because helping would be a nice thing todo.

Of course it is always more complicatedthan that. If I weren't getting some consideration I wouldn't have ahouse right now, for example, but I live under the constant reminderthat that slack is running out and if I haven't dealt with stuff bythe time that happens, to the degree I have an income sufficient topay for the house, I will have no house.

* So called because it's like things are over the horizon. You can't feel things outside of the moment, which means that there's no expectation or afterglow. Expectation is important for things like decision making and motivation, afterglow is important if you expect to be not-feeling-down without constantly having to do things that make you happy that very second.

John, Pete, and the Elephant (Difference between Man and Elephant)

2012-02-06T19:28:00.001-05:00

[By my father. Almost certainly written before I was born.]

John sees Pete as being different from himself

and considering himself good and right considers

Pete evil and wrong and further considers

killing him, both as a self-defense measure and

to rid the world of evil and wrong.

Pete sees John as being different from himself

and considering himself good and right considers

John evil and wrong and further considers

killing him, both as a self-defense measure and

to rid the world of evil and wrong.

The elephant sees both John and Pete as being

two of a same thing which is different from

itself and considering them as neither food nor

things which consider it as food goes to the stream

seeking comfort from a hot sun.

.hack//Sign: Something Is Wrong Here

2012-02-04T15:40:00.001-05:00

.hackrecap: Tsukasa can't log out. Thus far Tsukasa hasabruptly exited every single conversation he's been in, sometimesrudely.

Tsukasa is back at the spinning hoop gatething, trying to log out. Nothing happens. Mimiru shows up and he is,again, initially afraid at the arrival of a new person. When theysee that they've bumped into each other again Mimiru offers a smileand Tsukasa turns his back on her.

Mimiru sticks out her tongue. I'm notsure that there's a lot of point in trying to work out how thecontrol scheme works, but I think that the most logical conclusionbased on what we see and hear said in the show would be that itactually makes use of the player's facial expressions unless told notto. The player sticking out her tongue makes the character stick outher tongue. This could be accomplished by pointing a camera, orsomething like those sensor things for the games where you have nocontroller, back at the player's face.

Which would give the possibility for alot of non-verbal communication in the game. A smile, a narrowing ofthe eyes, sticking out one's tongue, basically expression, really,could be communicated through the game.

The alternative is that doing thesethings requires keystrokes which I don't really buy, though it doesmake for an interesting image of someone who is so practiced in thegame that when they try to make faces in real life their face remainsthe same because instead the impulse makes them move their fingers asif punching the appropriate keys.

Tsukasa looks back, catches hersticking her tongue out, and smiles for a short moment before goingback to walking away. Then he stops and asks her if she can log out.

First off, this is a good question onhis part. It's like when your power goes out. Before you go throughthe effort of trying to find and fix a problem in your house, youfirst might want to take a look to see of the other houses on thestreet have power. If the problem is for everyone, then you'll neverfix it by assuming it's just you.

Second, this might be a good time topoint out that the show has a lot of conversations where theparticipants aren't facing each other. When BT and Bear spoke itstarted out over his shoulder and ended up with him looking away fromher. When Subaru was talking to Silver Knight the conversationstarted with her facing in the opposite direction. Here Tsukasadecides to ask Mimiru something, but he's still facing away from herwhen he does.

Mimiru points out that not only canshe, she has. She's only been logged back in for a few minutes. Tsukasa walks away without offering an explanation for his question.

When Mimiru catches up with him he'ssitting on a cliff looking down both literally and figuratively.

She asks if he really means he can'tlog out, he says it looks that way, she wonders if he might have donesomething wrong. Something like cheating perhaps. The beetle hasreturned, he knocks it over with his staff.

He can't remember, which is prettytroubling to him. He ends up repeating it several times with a fairamount of desperation.

Mimiru points out that if all elsefails, all he has to do is reset his terminal. At which pointTsukasa notices something is strange and goes into full blown panicmode. When he tries to run away Mimiru stops him by grabbing him byhis clothes and basically throwing him back where he started.

She's trying to get him to calm down,it has the opposite of the intended effect. There's a reason thatMimiru thought that was a reasonable thing to do. There's a reasonthat it wasn't. We'll get to those reasons but since they're verymuch tied up with what happens next, we'll go there first.

Tsukasa jumps up and angrily shouts,“Leave me alone!” which catches Mimiru off guard. And sheresponds with anger of her own.

This is the third time that Tsukasa hastried to rudely exit a conversation with her and, since she saw whathappened with the Crimson Knights, the fourth time she's seen him doit. The last time he did it he first hit her with an out of nowherestatement that he didn't like her. Then, when she tried to make a peace offering by smiling when she met him this time, he turned his back.

I don't think she hears, “Leave MeAlone!” I think she hears him claiming the right to totally controlwhen and how conversations begin and end. I don't think she'shearing it as a request to be left alone so much as staking claim tobeing the one in control. I think she sees him as saying that everything has to be done on his terms.

Regardless of exactly what her thoughtprocess is, she gets angry. Tsukasa gets scared. I'm pretty sureMimiru doesn't notice this, I didn't notice myself the few times Isaw it. Mimiru shouts at Tsukasa, the important bit being:

I don't want to be the one to saythis, but the net is the same as the real world! There are certainmanners you have to observe when dealing with people, and you won'tbe treated with respect if you behave badly.

That's not wrong, but it's not righteither. It isn't the same. She wouldn't have thrown him to the ground in the realworld, but as I said, we'll get to that.

Tsukasa has managed to calm down, andhe no longer appears to be afraid. He simply says that he knowsthat but he would like it if she would leave him alone. She says she will butfirst brings up that he said he didn't like her and says she doesn'thim him either. Or, in the dub, “I hate your guts!”

I don't know if there is a good way torespond to such a declaration, but I do know that Tsukasa's waywasn't good. He thinks that's great, they agree, she'll leave himalone, he'll ignore her ... and slap.

Mimiru smacked Tsukasa in response to being told he'd ignore her, and then there's confused silence. Neither of them really understands what just happened.

For Mimiru this is all just a game, shethinks that you ought to behave with a certain level of respect, butin spite of what she said she doesn't think the game is the same asreal life because if she didn't she wouldn't be acting the way she isacting. She'd be saying the same words in all probability, but notdoing the same things. Because it's a game. It doesn't hurt. Youcan slap someone without hurting them, you can grab them withoutviolating their personal space.

These things are not being done to theplayer, but to the character. The player sits at a safe distance faraway somewhere. People will misuse that distinction and do things tocharacters that actually seem to be intended to traumatize theplayers, but that's not what Mimiru is doing here. She doesn'texpect Tsukasa to respond with such immediate anger to being thrownon the ground because as far as she knows that's not what she'sdoing. She certainly doesn't think it's a violation. She doesn'texpect the slap to hurt him because it literally cannot do that andshe is blissfully unaware of the fact that impossible things arehappening.

For her she's in a world where you canslap someone without being abusive, it would be on the level oftrading insults perhaps, nothing more. She has no idea that Tsukasaisn't in that world. As far as she knows what she's done is nothingmore than going low level nuker at the end of a discussion withsomeone who has repeatedly demonstrated a lack of respect for her.

To look at it in a completely differentway, she thinks she's in NCIS. The parallel isn't exactly rightbecause Gibbs never slaps people in the face, but if you've seen NCISyou probably know that I'm talking about. The Gibbs-smack is aliteral blow to the back of the head that, because of the unrealqualities of that setting, somehow manages not to be abusive butinstead a simple wake-up call. More like a harsh word than arealistic portrayal of slapping someone in the back of the head.

Gibbs doesn't have to worry about his hitting people being a problem, because he's living in a semi-slapstick world where things are different and that's ok. Slap people all you want, it's safe.

Yet here Mimiru has done that to someone, ina place where it's not supposed to hurt, and he's reacted like hereally did get slapped and it really did hurt quite a bit and itreally was a violation and Mimiru has no idea what to do as a result.

At first she's confused, then, as hisreaction deepens and he is on the verge of tears, she moves toconcern. But then she shakes it off, turns up her nose, and leaves. She has no idea of the pain that she's caused.

Once you get to know Mimiru, once youunderstand the character and realize that if she had even thefaintest inkling of what was going on she never would have done anyof this, the scene is pretty heartbreaking. Someone,someone who takes the feelings of others pretty damned seriously,just caused physical pain to someone else, someone already in real distress, because of amisunderstanding. They were playing by different sets of rules, andshe didn't know about it.

She threw an imaginary blow and Tsukasa really got hit with it.

It's always bad when someone gets hurt but, for me at least, it's so much worse when it's all because of misunderstanding. At least when someone sadistic is hurting someone (or hurting you) you can channel your emotion into something like anger or hate, but when a good person is hurting someone because they don't realize what they're doing is causing harm, all you're left with is sadness.

We never see what happens when Mimirufinally realizes what happened here, but I think it's worthmentioning that we never see her doing these things again. Not even to people whom she knows with absolute certainty wouldn't feel it.

Tsukasa is closer to understandingwhat's going on. Unlike Mimiru he's had indications aplenty thatsomething was wrong. When we first see him he's in lingering painafter being knocked unconscious and left on the ground. The onlypart of the previous sentence that shouldn't set off, “That'simpossible,” bells is “left on the ground.” He can't rememberhow he got there, soon after he can't remember about theanthropomorphic cat the knights are interested in beyond that he'sseen it, he can't remember if he cheated (though he is convinced thathe didn't).

The reason he tried to log out thefirst time was that he had an unpleasant, never elaborated on, feeling thatcaused him to stand up in the middle of a conversation and headstraight to log out. That failed. Now he's failed to log out again. And what he's just realized was enough to send him into utter panic,he is coming to realize more and more that something is very wrong.

But none of it came with quite theforce of a slap to the face. As he's left standing there, on theverge of tears, he can't understand why it hurts.

Unless you follow the dub instead ofthe subtitles, then he can't figure out why him. I've actuallywritten a post addressing that subject already, but I'm waiting untilI'm done with episode one to publish it. The short answer is thathe's been chosen by a force he doesn't understand to fill a role thathe is singularly unqualified to fill. He was chosen because hisemotional state is fragile enough that the one who chose him believesthat he can be manipulated into abject failure.

In fact, the one who chose him doesn'teven intend to tell him what it is that he is supposed to be doing.

[Previous][Next]

.hack//Sign: Meeting more people

2012-02-04T14:45:00.001-05:00

.hack recap: Within an online game called TheWorld, Tsukasa woke up in alone in in a dungeonexperiencing lingering pain, in spite of the fact that should beimpossible. He's made a habit of warping away while people are talking to him. Every time someone shows up he has reacted with fear. When he tried to log out, he couldn't.

There are a few more introductions toget through which are fine to watch but boring as all hell to writeabout. I'm not sure if they're equally boring to read about. (If they are, skip to the next post.) Here goes.

We pick up at night in a snowy place,there are snow laden pines in the foreground and mountains in thebackground. The sound track is music with a sort of carnival sound. Tskasa is riding something called a grunty which I'm not entirelysure how to describe. It's like, a small furry cartoon hippopotamusperhaps? This one is Yellow. It walks into a wall, backs uprecovers in that way cartoon things do, then walks back into thewall. Tsukasa remarks with amusement on it's lack of intelligence,and then we cut to an oasis in a desert during day.

Tsukasa looks around, thinks he'salone, and throws something into the water. That summons a water spirit thingy who starts what ispresumably a preprogrammed conversation. I'm not entirely sure whatthe gameplay was supposed to be, because Tsukasa isn't interested. Hetakes a few swipes at the water NPC with his staff and it dodges and then disappears. Andthat that point I finally get what he's doing.

He's playing the game wrong for fun. Playing with the game instead of playing it. I'm not going to judge, sometimes when I feel bad I rain nuclearannihilation on stone age civilizations. (Empire Earth II allows formassively unbalanced wars, if you want them.) We all have our meansof coping.

I mentioned last post that there's onetime in this episode where I wasn't sure if Tsukasa reacted with fearto the arrival of a new person. This is it. Sometimes when I watchthis I am convinced that his initial reaction is fear. Other timesI'm convinced that it definitely wasn't fear. This most recentviewing my position is that Tsukasa is not afraid here. He stillwill prepare to be attacked though.

Either way, he hears laughing behindhim and turns to see a swordsman, Bear. I haven't talked a lot aboutplayer appearances but it might be worth noting that Bear probablyhas the least clothing of anyone in the series. Instead much of hisbare upper body, as well as much of his face, is decorated with bluebody paint. It seemed worth mentioning.

He asks if Tsukasa is having fun,comments that he does the same thing when he's feeling down, andoffers to help out saying that he's always helping newbies. Tsukasaleaves without a word. Bear comments to the empty space that wascertainly a very shy person.

And now for the first non-Tsukasaconversation in the series. BT, who like Tsukasa is a wavemaster,walks up and isn't happy that Bear apparently left in the middle of afight. Bear points out she won anyway, there's some back and forthending with a statement on Bear's part that will be repeated muchlater in the series in a different context. It is translated as,“Oh, I am gentle, but not a pushover,” it works here where it'sin response to an accusation that he's not being a gentleman, butmakes no sense when repeated later.

I prefer a fan translation I saw oncewhere it is, “Oh I am nice, but not soft,” because that can fitboth the original and the call back. I should see if I can find thatfan translation again.

And then we come to Venice. Actuallyit's called Mac Anu, but Mac Anu probably means nothing to mostpeople while Venice ought to give a good idea of what it looks like. Both the buildings and the canals remind me of Venice. I think wecan be pretty sure that's intentional.

On a boat Subaru, the leader of theCrimson Knights, is speaking with Silver Knight.

Subaru: The other day, I had achance to speak with Lord Orca. He is also concerned about therecent situation in The World.

Silver Knight: The increasednumber of users has caused a decline in morality.

Subaru: That's not it. Howeverhe said he can't reveal any details yet. He also said he will workwith Lord Balmung to find out more.

Lord Orca will never appear in theseries, Lord Balmung will appear only briefly. While we, theviewers, don't know anything about them (unless we've followed otherparts of the franchise) Silver Knight and Subaru both do and it'sclear they have high opinions of both of them. They also drawcompletely different conclusions based on those two being involved.

Silver Knight's position is that ifthose two are on the case then there is clearly nothing to worryabout. Subaru's position is that if the case is big enough for thoseto be working on it then it's definitely worth worrying about.

They can't get into discussion of therelative merits of those two positions because what to SilverKnight's wondering eyes should appear but Tsukasa, sitting by himselfat the side of the canal.

Silver Knight can apparently make hiseyes (red lenses in his helmet) glow. Which is neat. Tsukasa runs(actually runs, instead of warping) away, and Silver Knight says amelodramatic line:

It is not easy to act in the nameof Justice.

This is actually the halfway point, andI'm going to break the post here.

[Previous][Next]

I have a headache. Also a cat. The two are unrelated.

2012-02-03T16:10:00.001-05:00

I have a headache. My sister took the Excedrin promising to get more in return for taking what there was, then there was an Excedrin recall. I haven't heard about the possibility to getting more headache medicine since.

I was hoping to get at least two posts written today. One finishing off the first episode of .hack, another finishing off the second map of Deus Ex training. My brain is not really working though. I did get six things that I had previously written but not yet transferred onto the blog up, so that's something.

If you haven't been following the situation over at the Slacktiverse, I think I envy you. Even if you're only tangentially involved it's still incredibly draining. I haven't read most of the posts, I haven't been keeping up all that closely, it's still sucking the life out of me. I should probably take this moment to point out how awesome the moderators over there are. I'm not sure, but I think if I had one of their jobs I probably would have curled up into a ball and hoped that the internet and indeed the world at large would go away if I just ignored it. Not only did they not succumb to the pressure, they stayed remarkably on top of things at times dealing with problems within mere seconds. So, much credit is due the Slacktimods that make up TBAT.

So, anyway, I have a headache. I'm not sure when I'll write what I've been meaning to write. Hopefully today, we'll see how the headache goes.

I also have a cat.

I believe it's traditional to have pictures of cute animals in times of troubles. It's very hard to get a picture of my cat being cute, she usually stops when the camera comes out, but I think in this case she thought the lighting was bad enough for it not to matter or something.

So that's my contribution to having things nice on the internet. Also Fred Clark recently posted a link to this video of Ellen DeGeneres in something called a Hawaii chair. It is hilarious.

Anyone reading have any contributions of niceness on the internet?

Dreamer's Flight - Story idea

2012-02-03T15:02:00.001-05:00

[Originally posted at the Slacktiverse.]

I've long had an idea for a story in which a firefly class transport an obsessed fan built for a home (name the the home: Dreamer of Dreams) is fitted to actually fly as a means to escape ... something. Something that can only reasonably be solved with a vtol aircraft.

The plan would begin with something like this:

"Dreamer don't fly."
"Ok, first, you majored in English and you tutored grammar for six years. The word is doesn't and you know it. Second, I know you. You probably made it space worthy."
"I don't actually know if it would stand up to a vacuum, I mean there's only so much testing-"
"I rest my case. I have engines. You have an aircraft. This can work."

The thing is I have almost nothing else in mind other than the firefly flying. I mean, isn't that enough? Ok, I do have a couple other thoughts. The pilot would be female (only character with a definite gender at this stage) and awesome, the one who built the firefly would explain that before you do anything you have to hit these three switches,

"What are they for?"
"Luck."

Take off would be accompanied by Magic Carpet Ride. Landing would take place on a ship (as in ocean going vessel) of some kind. Enough people would be involved in the project of making the house fly that they'd be packed into Dreamer's cargo bay on takeoff like a load of black market beagles. (This is not a Noah's ark affair, more like Utnapishtim loading up his boat with as many people as he could.)

-

[Original Work Index]

The kicked out of magic land ending in general, and Narnia in particular

2012-02-03T13:02:00.002-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]

I've never been a fan of the kicked out of super special place ending either.

"Thank you for saving us. Now get out."

"But I've made all these great friends and I really like it here."

"Get out."

"Can I visit on the weekends?"

"No."

"How about once a month?"

"Get out."

"Once a year? Please. I'm begging you here."

"Get out now. Back to your world with you foreigner!"

Um... yay? This is good how?

-

On the plus side, the kids got to stay for quite a while in Narnia, on the down side they got to stay for quite a while in Narnia. It was their home for fuck's sake. They barely even remembered their lives before. Even if Narnia does operate on a principle of needing to get the illegals out before they can have anchor babies, don't you think an exception could be made for the royalty who fracking grew up there? Pass the Narnia, "England is but a Dream to me" Act.

You can't just cast people out of their home and have it be a happy ending.

They should have ruled for a little while, left the wardrobe, come back to rule for a little while, left the wardrobe, and so on. They could have stopped by every day. Rule as long as it takes to get stuff in order, prepare Narnia for their departure, and then go back out of the wardrobe. There would be continuity of government and identity. Their Narnia selves would never get too much older than their England selves because they'd never stay in Narnia for all that long. Narnia would be structured around the idea that there would regular periods with rulers present, and regular periods with rulers absent. They'd have to deal with about an day earth time without their royalty, but after that the royalty would be back to deal with any problems that cropped up.

The reign of the kings and queens of Narnia could thus endure for thousands of years with a fair degree of stability.

-

[Original Work Index]
As for the second, larger, part about Narnia, I haven't done enough Narnia stuff for there to be an index for it yet.

Edith and Ben - Save yourself

2012-02-03T12:48:00.001-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[This isn't based on any specific thing in Twilight, for all I know there's nowhere in Twilight that a conversation like this could plausibly fit.]
[I should note that this only makes sense if Ben not running and hiding actually increases Edith's chances of survival. If it wouldn't then Edith would point out that Ben staying wouldn't help and the conversation would be very short:

"It won't make me more likely to live, it will make you more likely to die. Everyone loses, nobody wins. It's a bad idea."

And Ben reluctantly agrees. It's only because she can't say that, because it's not true, that the conversation can take place. Both sides want to maximize the other's chance at survival even though it means reducing their own.]

"You should go."

She was probably right about that. I didn't care, "Maybe so, but I'm not leaving you."

I don't know that I've ever seen her at a complete loss for words before. She started to talk several times each with a different emotion attached. Anger, sadness, exasperation. Others I had trouble placing. When she finally spoke it was a soft, "That's stupid," with none of the previous emotions in evidence.

"What if it were you? What if I were the nigh invulnerable superpowered vampire who's been around for decades and uses words like 'confute'-"

"You do say confute."

That was true. She infected me. I continued, " and you were the puny defenseless human? Would you leave me to fend for myself?" I paused a moment and then added, "And remember, I know when you're lying."

"How could you know that? I've never lied to you."

That was a very good point, I'd been there when she lied, but she'd never actually... except, "There was that one time-"

"That was before you knew me well enough to have developed your alleged uncanny lie detection powers."

I was going to respond to that, but then I realized something. "You're evading."

"That's because I don't want to answer the question."

"Obviously. But you know I'm not going to drop it."

"I'd do exactly what you're doing." And for the briefest of moments I thought I'd convinced her. "That doesn't make it any less stupid. I'd probably get myself killed." I started to respond but she stopped me. "It's your turn."

"What?"

"You're a vampire. I'm a human. I refuse to leave you in danger. I die. How do you feel?"

I didn't respond. The silence was quite awkward.

"I'm dead. You're alive. I'm dead because I tried to help you after you told me it was too dangerous. How do you feel about that?"

It was a difficult question and one that I didn't want to think about. "I don't plan on dying."

"Most people don't. Now you're being evasive."

"Because I don't want to answer." I took a moment. "There aren't words. I'd be devastated. But say vampire-me got his way. Human-you ran and hid. Vampire-me died. Human-you lived. Would you feel any different?"

"Of course not." She looked away for a moment. "That's why I'd probably get myself killed." She sighed. "Alright, but promise me you won't die."

"Promise me you won't."

-

[Edith and Ben Index]

Edith and Ben - Not Paying Attention

2012-02-03T12:36:00.000-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]
[Think of this as being the Ben equivalent of one of the times Bella completely dismisses Jessica's words as unworthy of consideration.]

It was only after the second, louder, time Jesse said my name that I realized he'd said it the first time. I tried hard not to look like a deer in headlights and figure out where we were. It didn't work. Jesse asked, "Are you ok?"

I mumbled something that was probably not convincing but was meant to indicate I was fine. I'm not good when put on the spot.

"You weren't paying attention, were you?"

"It's not that it's just..." and I really didn't know what to say, and didn't really want to talk about it anyway.

"It's just what?" he asked. His tone was one of concern, not accusation.

I looked down and sighed. "I'm not... I'm not good at following conversations. I lose track of what's being said and... the words fade into background noise and I don't realize that it's happening until I've already missed a bunch so when I do realize I'm already lost. And I can't just say, 'Hey, I have no idea what you're talking about,' because then people think I'm ignoring them and being a jerk and... stuff. So I try to catch up on my own.

"Sometimes it works, but other times I just end up missing even more in the process and I get so lost I don't even remember when I last knew what was going on and I start thinking about what I can possibly say to get out of it without letting on how little I know about what's been said, and that maybe it's obvious that I have no idea what's going on, and I wonder what people will think, and worry that maybe I'll lose all my friends, and then I'll be all alone and I don't want that but maybe it's better because I'm obviously being a terrible friend if I can't even listen right.

"And- and at that point I'm not even hearing the words anymore."

There was silence, then Jesse put a hand on my shoulder. "You know, I don't remember what I was saying either."

That got a small smile from me. I didn't want to smile, I felt like I should feel bad, but I couldn't help it.

"Next time just say something," he said. "I promise I won't get mad."

-

[Edith and Ben Index]

Edith and Ben Metapost - Some thoughts on rape

2012-02-03T12:32:00.000-05:00

[Originally posted at Ana Mardoll's Ramblings.]

I have put some thought into rape and Edith and Ben. I'm definitely not going to have a part of the story where a gang of random people try to rape Ben, not because he's male but because I'm not about to use rape as a throwaway plot point. But Edith, having been reading people's minds for decades, must have a lot of experience with rape. I think she probably generally handles it in combination with Jasmine.

Edith interrupts to prevent the rape from taking place, Jasmine hits the rapist with negative emotions. They repeat as necessary. Hopefully this causes the rapist to reevaluate things*, realize that what was being done was wrong, and decide never to do that again. Failing that Edith and Jasmine hope to create a Pavlovian aversion to rape within the would-be rapist.

-

* "Why do I feel so guilty? I was just going to... oh."

[Edith and Ben Index]

The Mermaid War - Initial thoughts and brainstorming

2012-02-03T12:08:00.000-05:00

This is going to have a bit of a different format than usual. It's from a comment thread that was at Ana Mardoll's ramblings where I had scattered thoughts across multiple posts and I'm just going to repost several posts here.

[It was stated that a contest favored "real world fiction".]

So you mean that the idea I had Tuesday about a sprawling epic set around 1200 BC, telling the story of the Bronze Age Collapse that destroyed nearly every civilization in existence at that time (and severely damaged that few that did survive), called The Mermaid Wars wouldn't go over well?

It's probably for the best, I couldn't write it by February 5th even if it would be favored.

Anyway, Tuesday it suddenly hit me, all we have are a few cryptic references to the Sea Peoples, no one really knows where they came from, clearly it was a massive mermaid invasion.

[Ana Mardoll: This makes sense, but how did the Merpeople fight on land? Do they have transmogrifying abilities?]

I haven't quite figured that part out yet, but I have a feeling that the reason that the merpeople don't rule the world now is that the last act of the doomed civilizations was to work together, probably by means of some sort of hastily thrown together team/fellowship/thing, would be to somehow drive the merpeople back into the sea, and if there is, say, a network of magical thingys that allow the merpeople to take on humanish form and in so doing wage war on land, destroying that network might be a decent way to do it.

It probably wouldn't contain the conversion:

"But there are thousands of them now."

"Yes but the system is only triple redundant so all we need to do is take out four of them in critical areas and the entire system will collapse."

Because that sounds too modern.

[Mime_Pardox, in response to Ana's question: Ooh, I know! They arrived on land, died from a fatal inability to breathe, and then their rotting corpses brought pestilence upon their enemies.]

Or, you know, Mime_Paradox's idea slightly modified. Some sort of War of the Worlds narration about how via millions of years of work we have gained the ability to sustain ourselves on air and thus the land is our birthright and yada-yada-yada they died because they weren't as lungfishy as they thought and by the time they realized that months/years of exposure to air would lethally poison them it was too late.

-

Actually there are so many different things you could do. Even if I am picturing them with tails (though there might be something to be said for tentacles) they don't actually have to have legs to fight on land anymore than we need wings to fight in air. They need 1200 BCE steampunk technology.

(Which they stole from Atlantis when it sank. Or maybe not. Probably better if they came up with it on their own.)

[Pause]

Though I should say that the original idea was to have everything as close to historical as possible with the one glaring exception being the mermaid armies. And I was just picturing them having the ability to breath in and out of water and having the ability to switch from having a tail to having legs. I have not figured out how they would be driven back into the sea in that setting.

[Dash1: Um "Invasion of the Really Pissed-Off Nereids"?]

Oh my god, yes. It's right around the date of the Trojan War so Thetis, pissed off about the death of her son, rallied all of her siblings on a campaign to kill all the land dwellers. It's not about conquest, it's about rampant destruction as a coping mechanism.

"You'll pay for the death of Achilles!"
"I'm from Egypt, I don't even know this Achilles person."
"I DON'T CARE!"

[Original Work Index]

Now you can give me money

2012-02-02T21:42:00.001-05:00

I mentioned last year, when talking about my general financial situation, that I was considering adding a tip jar to the blog. I believe that I got the idea from Fred Clark's Slacktivist back when it was on Typepad (which is where the Slacktiverse now resides.).

Anyway, I mentioned it late last year, and I've been meaning to do it ever since. I've been finding reasons to procrastinate and just failing to follow through for no reason at all. Then, recently, I noticed that Slacktivist has a tip jar again. Which provoked reactions along the line of, "Damn it, I've been meaning to do that." That sort of brought it back into a, "Why haven't I done this yet?" focus. And finally, today, I've done it.

At least I hope I have. In theory there's a donate button in a gadget labeled "Tip Jar" on the right hand side of the page near the top which should allow people to send money my way via PayPal.

So, you know, if you happen to rich, I'm broke. Very, very broke. Depending on who you ask it's either with good reason or all my fault, but either way money is nice. Unfortunately I don't think anyone reading this actually much in the way of money to spare at the moment. Times are hard for everyone*.

Still, it's there.

-

On the other money making fronts on the blog, my goal to make pennies has succeeded. I've earned hundreds of them. More than seven hundred. None of that is money I actually have access to in the real world at this point, but in cyberspace/in theory I have succeeded in earning pennies.

At this rate I might be able to buy the textbooks I was supposed to buy two weeks ago by the end of the year. Or from a different perspective, I'm currently earning more than infinity times what I was earning two months ago. Various perspectives really do change things.

-

* Well, everyone that would be reading. Given that I've endorsed Elizabeth Warren I think we can reasonably assume certain people (I say while glaring in the general direction of wide swaths of the credit industry, for example) are not likely to be reading. You know, the sorts of people who end up getting rich while times are tough for everyone else.

January 2012

2012-02-01T22:33:00.000-05:00

So I want it to be easy for people to find what they want, which is what the various indexes are for, but I've been thinking that there's no quick way to see what was posted recently. You can pick a tag and look at the most recent things published with that tag, but if you're wondering, "Was anything that interests me posted in the last month?" in general you'd have to go through page by page. That doesn't seem right, so I give you what was posted in the last month, grouped by topic to some degree or other, and with short descriptions.

General Stories:
Epic Book Blowing Up - Someone said Roark from Ayn Rand's The Fountainhead was an architect because "you can't blow up a book in an epic 'you don't appreciate me!' flounce" this is a quick attempt to do just that.
A Simple Zombie Story Idea - Loosely thought out idea of how someone stays sane when all alone after the zompocalypse.
Random Discussion of Monsters - It's what happens after that moment when you realize that if one supernatural thing is real, maybe others are too.

Left Behind based:
Post Rapture, No News Today - A more human Cameron Williams responding to the lack of any new information on the stories that matter.

Twilight based:
Snarky Twilight: At the Nurse's Office - Bella and Edward discuss Edward's track record, his thoughts of violence, and his refusal to take responsibility.
Team [Someone] - Slogans for various Twilight teams, I picture them on t-shirts. You can actually buy a Team Leah one if you want, and if any of the others seriously interest you (which I doubt they will) say so and I'll put those in the shop. The only one I'd hesitate with is Team Jacob.

Non-Story one off posts:
What I hear from Hungary - Exactly what it sounds like. What I hear is not good.
To My Body - About how it shouldn't feel the need to prove me right when I say negative things.
Interlude, Snow, and Driveways - Spent a day shoveling, thought about possible ways that that might be avoided, and solar pannels, and mentioned that I was thinking of doing series on .hack//Sign and Deus Ex.
Occupy the ... wait, where's our stuff? Do I smell gas? - On the absurd and disturbing way the police responded to crimes against the local Occupy group.
To Windows - About how if pressed I'll bring the older generation out of retirement to give it a talking to. Set off by Window's tendency to restart without permission in the name of updating.

A series of posts on the Mayan Calendar:
Part 1: Our Calendar and the Long Count - They're both largely linear, if you can understand ours then the Long Count should be pretty simple to get a hold on.
Part 2: Hypothetical Calendars - Different ways one could go about making calendars.
Part 3: Modular Arithmetic and the Tzolk'in - The first cyclical calendar I approached.
Part 4: The Haab' and the Calendar Round - About a year similar to our own, the claim that the Mayan calendar was more accurate, a bigger cyclical calendar, and that's more or less it.
Part 5: Prophecy and the Short Count - What I know about the idea behind Mayan prophecy, the Short Count, the k'atun cycle, and how to make your own prophecies.

The start of a series of posts on the video game Deus Ex:
An Introduction of sorts - An introduction to the game, followed by me trying to correct an incorrect theory on the date of the game.
Backstory - The story of the world and the player character leading up to the game.
On Newer Better Graphics and Original Text - Impressive graphics enhancements mods exist. I will not be using them for this series of posts, and here I explain why.
Training 1: No Exits - A training mission, by its very nature, requires doing things that make no sense in any kind of real world, but the Deus Ex training mission also can give us insight into the game and setting. So I started playing and I let the snark begin. I touched on the visual style of Deus Ex and an unrealistic part of the level design.
Training 2: Infolinks, Lockpicks, and a lack of female characters - We meet some of the elements of the setting, and I notice that there seem to be fewer women than men.
Training 3: Books and Coworkers - How the impression of a world beyond what you see is created, and the first of your coworkers you meet in person.
Training 4: What the hell is wrong with these people? - The snark takes over as the things done for training become even more absurd.
Training 5: What isn't - Since we've arrived at the first part of the game where we know revisions were made, I talk about what ended up on the cutting room floor.
Training 6: What is - Having discussed what isn't in the game, I return my attention to what is. Starting with Gunther Hermann, the first example of a mechanically augmented person you meet. Then I talk about how aiming and shooting works in the game.

The start of a series of posts on the anime .hack//Sign:
Before we get started - An introduction to the setting.
Before the first word is spoken - A very close reading of the first minute or so of the show, and thoughts on why I like it.
Welcome to The World - In the first half of the first episode I note that Tsukasa seems to be afraid of people, speculate on the role of destiny in choosing the people he meets, talk about the Crimson Knights, and different character's paradigms for dealing with people online.

And there was some blog business:
About the About Page - There's an About Page now.
Blog Policies - Ok, so so far there's only one.

Does this exist? (Text Analysis and Manipulation Software)

2012-02-01T20:31:00.000-05:00

I've been thinking about doingsomething extremely silly for a while now but doing it would requirethe use of tools that might not actually exist. Specificallycomputer programs.

I know almost nothing of programming. I know enough to know that I don't know enough. Often times I'vethought something would be easy only to be informed that it would beimpossible, or thought something would be impossible only to beinformed not only was it incredibly easy, it was already done. SoI'm just going to ask, here's some programs I'd like to play with. Do they exist?

The first is a search and replacefunction that takes into account morphology and syntax.

Say one wanted to replace everyinstance of “have” in a document with an instance of “possess”. The first hurdle would be that many of the cases aren't going to behave. They're going to be had, or having. You won't find them witha simple search for have, you won't be able to replace them with theword possess. You need to be able to find instances of a wordoutside of the form given, and replace them with forms of theother word that match.

Second, “have” isn't always used the sameway. You don't want, “I have been there many times,” to become“I possess been there many times.” That's where the syntax wouldcome in. A verb auxiliary is different from a verb, and so adistinction can be made. (For that matter “have to” and “have”could, in theory, be automatically distinguished since ordinary“have” is never going to be followed by “to” and “have to”is, I'm pretty sure, never split.)

Or, to switch words for a moment, youdon't want to confuse, “This is my land,” with, “I'm going toland the plane.”

I know that based on how something isused in a sentence computers can give a best guess at what part ofspeech it is. I have no idea how these programs work or how welltheir guesses hold up, but I know that something like that exists. What I don't know is whether they've been implemented in a searchprogram where you could look up, say, all of the verb instances ofthe word “land.”

At some point it's going to break downbecause there will be things that can't be divided up by morphologyand syntax, but if enough of it works right the things that workwrong should be part of the fun. The thing is, I don't know if anyof this exists.

Is there a search function that takesinto account morphology and syntax? Is there a replace function togo with it?

Also, if there is, could I, say, use it to get alist of the transitive verbs in a document ranked from most frequentto least frequent? Intransitive? Verbs that go both ways? Nouns? Adjectives? Adverbs? Stuff? That might be an interesting thing to have.

Mostly changing direction, since I'malready talking about running analysis on a document using a programthat has some way of working at syntax, would it be possible to, say,get a list of all the adjectives used to modify a given noun?(Preferably ranked from most frequent to least frequent.) Verbs withwhich it's the subject? Verbs with which it's the object? (Wouldprobably want to subdivide verbs into active and passive.)

Is text parsing at a level where it cando a less than crap job of figuring out which noun a pronoun isassociated with and use that as part of the gathering above?

If I did gather this kind of data, bywhatever means, for multiple subjects is there something I could useto run an analysis on the multiple data sets looking for patterns? (Elements that often are used together, chords of text basically.) So that after comparing all the data one could have a set of patternsand be able to say, for example, “Set X is associated with patterns1, 3, and 7”?

Perhaps I should be a bit lessabstract.

Say I wrote by leaning heavily onstereotypes and as a result I used the same language to describe allof my male characters. I may not use every word in that with everymale character, but it should theoretically be possible to discern apattern because the words tend to be used together in the malecharacters, and tend not to be used in the female ones. More thanthat, it should be possible to discover that pattern even if youdon't know what you're looking for.

Since the language of maleness is beingused on some characters (male ones) but not others (female ones)looking for words that tended to occur together should result in youfinding that language and being able to classify characters into thecategory that is described using it, and the category that is not. When you looked at which characters fell into which categories you'dprobably realize that it had to do with gender, but the processitself should be able to be done with no such thinking.

Of course, that wouldn't be the onlything. Maybe all evil characters are described using a set ofstereotypical adjectives and verbs as well. Perhaps the same goesfor leaders. A character might be an evil male leader. They mightbe the only evil male leader, in which case the entire set of wordsassociated with them should be fairly unique, but within it one wouldbe able to find words from three separate patterns (male, evil,leader.) A female good leader should be recognizable as being inone, and only one, of the same patterns as the male evil leader.

In reality it wouldn't be nearly thatclear cut or that easy to detect, there would be a lot of noise todeal with not to mention the problems of small sample size anddoubtless many headaches, but as I mentioned before, I'm thinking ofdoing silly things, so I'm not actually wondering if anything existsthat does this sort of thing well. I'm wondering if somethingexists that does this sort of thing at all.

And as with the search and replace,mistakes might be part of the fun, but only if it works right to somedegree.

Now I started with nouns, and thenmoved into characters for a specific example, but I'd be interestedin if something similar could be done with other parts of speech. What objects does this verb take? What are some other verbs thattake a similar set of objects. Ditto for subjects. What nouns doesthis adjective modify? What other adjectives modify a similar set ofnouns?

That sort of thing.

So, I've described multiple programshere. Do any of them exist?

Thanks.

.hack//Sign: Welcome to the World

2012-01-31T19:56:00.000-05:00

[Welcome to my trip through .hack//SIGN]

[The first post in this series is here.]

Having devoted an entire post to thefirst minute or so of the episode, it's hopefully clear that thingsaren't as the should be. Tsukasa starts the episode unconsciouson the ground then gets up shaking and in pain. He should not be inpain, and it should have been impossible for anything in the game toknock him unconscious.

After he gets up he tries to rememberwhat's going on but this is quickly interrupted by another playershowing up. Tsukasa will be approached five times inthis episode before he has any idea what's going on. In everyinstance, with one possible exception where it's difficult to besure, his immediate reaction is fear. In two cases (including theone where he might not be afraid) he acts as if he's expecting to beattacked.

Somehow I never noticed it before, buthere, at the beginning, Tsukasa is afraid every time someone showsup. I find myself reminded of Parker's assessment of Luka from the Leverage episode The Stork Job. Specifically where shenotes Luka's flinch. Tsukasa is not an orphan, but I think it's fair tosay he's expecting the same thing. He's afraid of people, he expectsthem to hurt him.

This particular meeting is not onewhere he prepares for an attack because Mimiru, the player who hasarrived behind him, is immediately disarming in the cheerful way shegreets him. But it's not enough to get a response from him. So sheasks if he's alright and, when she notices that he's a wavemaster (magicuser) working alone speculates he must be powerful. (He isn't, he'sjust very, very solitary. So he works alone even though, given the class he's chosen,it would be wiser to be part of a group.)

Tsukasa uses is sprite ocarina (his“Beam Me up Scotty” device) to leave without saying a word. It'snot the best introduction. But it is an important introduction and Iwant to take a moment to talk about destiny because of it.

I'm not completely sure how to thinkabout free will in .hack because on the one hand there is a verypowerful external force that tries to force the characters into aspecific narrative, and you'd think that opposing that would beexercising free will, but on the other hand I do see the hand ofdestiny helping the characters in their opposition. If you refuseto do what you're told, and destiny helps you succeed in thatrefusal, is that exercising free will or allowing yourself to bedetermined? I honestly have no idea.

What I do know is that I see destinydoing very little, leaving the rest to the individuals, but thelittle bit that it does do is critical. I was originally going tosay that it gets you where you need to go and the rest is up to you,but even that overstates things. Where I do see it operating is inintroductions. This scene, right here, where Tsukasa and Mimirumeet, is one of the places that I see destiny in action.

Tsukasa doesn't interact with people,presumably in part because he's afraid of them at first, yet the handful ofinteractions he does have are, almost universally, the right people. Worthy of particular note are the people he meets by chance in this episode, Mimiruand Bear, because they are ideal people for him to meet. Quite possibly the absolute best people he could have met. Of the more than 20 millionpeople playing the game, the small handful he meets are the rightones.

Sometimes in stories who the characters are doesn't matter that much, someone else in their place would have risen to the occasion as well. I don't think that's the case in .hack. I think that if Tsukasa had met random other people instead of the people he did meet the most likely outcome would be abject failure.

Later in the series someone will saythat meeting is the result of the divine, while parting is the resulthuman action. Another will claim that a random meeting must havemeaning because the participants wouldn't have been brought togetherotherwise. I think they're right. In this story the only explicithigher power (higher than humans I mean) acts through heavy handed means and is evil. But ifone looks at the meetings, the way people are brought together bywhat on the surface seems to be random chance, there seems to be asubtler power at work. One that doesn't do much, but what it does isvery helpful.

We next see Tsukasa sitting against awell under a vibrant blue and purple sky near a colorful windmill. Ihaven't mentioned it before, but it has to be said that this seriesis beautiful. Anyway, Tsukasa is trying to figure out what's goingon. He doesn't remember what he was doing or where he is. Thatsecond question is one that I'd like to know more about because as isI'm not sure whether I should interpret it as him not knowing he's ina game, or something else.

A beetle crawls over his foot whilehe's thinking.

Then he hears people approaching, againhis first response is fear, this time he gets ready for an attack. It turns out to be three knights in armor. Out front is SilverKnight (apparently that's his name) who has armor that's different from the others. It has more red, horns on his helmet, and the eyes of his helmet are red. Further back and to either side areknights in what will turn out to be more standard armor, no red above the waist, gray above the waist, blue eyes in the helmet.

I note that the knight on the right(when you're looking at them) is wider than the one on the left. This is an online game, there's no need for the avatar to match theperson. This character is wider than standard because the playerwanted him to be wider. The same goes for every character in thegame. They look the way they look because their player wanted themto look that way. I bring this up because the fact that the gamedoesn't force everyone to be skinny isn't something we could havetaken for granted.

On the other hand, all of the maincharacters have chosen avatars that fit into the usual standard ofbeauty, so it's not exactly an overwhelming victory for acceptance ofa broad range of body types.

Anyway, the knights speak:

Silver Knight: We're not here tofight. We're the 13^th squadron of the Crimson Knights. I'm sure you've heard of us.

Right Knight: We Crimson Knightsvalue courage, civility, and tolerance. We were formed to look afterThe World and ensure it's smooth operation.

Left Knight: We are constantlykeeping watch on any illegal activities within The World.

The Crimson Knights are a player group,not a sanctioned police force. They work with the systemadministration where possible, but it's not as if the systemadministration and they have exactly the same goals

For example,the Crimson Knights are very much against what's called player killing, which is when one player kills another's character. (I don't think they'd object if the combat happened by mutual consent, we're talking about killing people who didn't agree to fight to the death.) The CC Corporation that runs thegame can't be against it all that much otherwise they wouldn't havecreated a set of rules that allowed for that kind of player vs. player violence.

The CC stance on it isn't quite anything goes, it seems to be moreof, “You can do it if you want, but don't get caught,” because there is an implication that reporting a player killer to them, doubtless accompanied by an appeal like, “This person keeps on killing ourcharacters and it's really making it so a lot of players can't enjoy the game,” would have the potential to make a difference. They're simply not interested doing anything to make it impossible tokill off another player's character. The Crimson Knights probably would if they could.

Anyway, the distinction between the knights and the administration is important becauseit means that the Crimson Knights have neither the authority nor theaccess to information that the administration has, and it's also indicative of the hands off approach the CC Corporation takes. Thereason that the Crimson Knights are authority figures in the game inspite of being just players themselves is that the CC Corporationdoesn't have a presence in the game and thus there is no officialauthority inside the game.

Back to the conversation, Ican't say definitively how Tsukasa responds because the subtitles andthe English dialog don't agree (and I don't understand Japanese.) Heeither says that he's of no interest to them, in which case theyrespond that they're interested in everyone, or he says that "that" (their mission) has nothing to do with him, in which case theysay it has to do with everyone.

There's a pretty big difference between,“You're of interest to me,” and, “What I'm doing concerns you,” but it pales in comparison to some of the other divergencesbetween the spoken English and the English subtitles. At one point acharacter will say, “But I'll betray you,” in one which will be,“But you'll have to trust me,” in the other. “What music areyou listening to?” in one will be, “What are you thinking?” inthe other.

This does not inspire confidence in thetranslation.

I love the show, but there are somedefinite translation issues here. I think that I generally prefer thesubtitles, which is unfortunate because I'd rather not have themsuperimposed on the screen. I want my picture clear of obstructions.

Back to the conversation again,it turns out that this isn't a random meeting. The knights havesought out Tsukasa because he was seen with someone who shouldn'texist. An anthropomorphic cat. They assume, incorrectly, that thecat is a player who illegally modified his or her avatar. They wantmore information and assure Tsukasa that if he tells them what heknows that'll be the end of it and they'll not inconvenience him further.

That does actually jog a memory inTsukasa, but not enough to answer any of their questions even if hewanted to. He beams away. They decide that it might be worthmonitoring Tsukasa.

Tsukasa lands at a big spinning hoopwith a sort of blue light filling it. This is called the chaos gate. I'll confess that I don't fully understand how this is supposed towork. I know that you use to to change servers, and that you use itlog out, but where I'm less clear is whether it's the case that allbeaming has to be via the chaos gate on the local server. I'm pretty sure that's the case, but I'm not completely sure.*

Anyway, Mimiru beams in. Tsukasa isafraid when he hears someone beaming (technically it's calledwarping), and when she isn't happy to see him (she sort of grunts andturns up her nose) he backs away.

The scene cuts to them a short distance away having a conversation. They're operating from completely different premisesand thinking in completely different ways. The conversation neverstood a chance of ending well.

First, Tsukasa ignores Mimiru in favorof a beetle that's taken to crawling on his staff. By blocking it'spath he makes it go back and forth. While he's doing this Mimiru isasking if he always warps away from people (she saw him do it to theknights) and telling him she doesn't think it's a good idea.

Then Tsukasa dismisses her concernsbecause he thinks it doesn't matter once he logs out. That idea goes againsteverything Mimiru believes about human interaction and I think sheactually handles having it thrown at her pretty well.

Mimiru believes that the internet isjust like the real world. Being a jerk on the internet is the sameas being a jerk in real life. The fact that you can log off doesn'tchange the fact that you shouldn't be rude and should considerothers. This is something she's willing to argue for quiteforcefully. But she doesn't do it here, she just says that's notwhat she means.

Then Tsukasa visibly realizes thatsomething is wrong, Mimiru asks what it is, Tsukasa stands upquickly, says he can't explain, and starts to walk away.

Mimiru tries a different tack, shepoints out that if he keeps acting this way he won't be welcome andasks what he plans on doing when the knights catch up with him. Firsthe says that that might be fun, then he says that if he doesn't wantto deal with it he'll just stay offline for a while.

Once again, this goes againsteverything Mimiru believes about how one ought to behave online. Forher, “I started something and don't want to deal with theconsequences so I'll act like it doesn't matter and ignore it,” isnot an acceptable stance.

She makes a prescriptive statement,“That is not the way the game is played!” Tsukasa responds bypointing out that The World has no objective and its up to theplayers how to play, a descriptive statement.

Mimiru is talking about consequenceswithin the game; Tsukasa is talking about consequences once you're nolonger playing. Mimiru is talking about how the game should beplayed; Tsukasa is talking about how the game can be played. Mimiruis talking about needing to deal with consequences; Tsukasa istalking about the ability to avoid them.

They might as well be in differentworlds at the moment.

Tsukasa tries to log out, we see theprocess start from his perspective, wind blows his hair around,colors change, he starts to lift of the ground. Then something goeswrong. Red light, a tone of wrongness, the colors change, he dropsback to earth (only a few inches), and finds himself exactly where hestarted. He's confused, he looks around and sees that Mimiru iswatching**, she's confused by his confusion. He turns to her, sayshe doesn't like her, and warps away.

Which is a horrible way to end aconversation, and leaves her thinking he's a jerk.

I'm going to stop here for now. Thefact that Tsukasa couldn't log out is a good note to end on.

*If it is, then I'm also not sure whythe knights didn't follow him, and the only explanation I can offer in that case is that they might have assumed he'd just beam away from there and they'd haveno idea where to.

**Pretty sure that the most it wouldlook like from her perspective is him rising and falling a fewinches, maybe not even that much.

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.hack//Sign, Before the first words are spoken

2012-01-28T14:54:00.000-05:00

After watching the series to refresh mymemory there's so much I want to say about so many things. I worrythat if I don't write it all down I'll forget it all, there arethings I want to say about the very last scene in the the finalepisode. Even if I go at a rate of an episode a week it'll be half ayear before I get there.

Anyway, mixed in with all of thisthinking was the realization that I probably have enough to say aboutwhat takes place before the first word is spoken to make a post initself. As Kit Whitfield has demonstrated, there's a lot to be said about the very beginningof something.

So, though I should be working onLatin, I think I'm going to talk about how .hack starts. Before I dothat though, if you'd like to actually see and hear what I'm talkingabout I have links for you. The series came out on DVD in sixinstallments, the first installment was called “Login”. I gotthe Special collector's edition of Login that cost lots of money and came witha stuffed animal. For most people it would probably make more senseto get the not so special not so collector's edition of Login that costs a lotless money and does not come with a stuffed animal.

I highly recommend you get it and watchit, but, then again, I would. Hopefully this series of posts willgive you some insight into why I think it's worth the time and money,though I probably won't demonstrate that in the first post.

I will spoil things prettyconsistently, so if you want to watch unspoiled you're probably notgoing to want to read these posts yet.

Episode 1: Roleplay

After the opening credits we findourselves in a place of sand dunes, which turns out to be a beach, orpossibly a desert that reaches to the beach, a giant monolithic blackthing that I occasionally feel looks like a giant bizarrely misshapencell phone has a screen on it light up, a low note is played, and weswitch to the next scene.

I cannot justify any of what I justsaid. Having watched the series multiple times I still have no ideawhat we're to make of it and it seems to have no connection toanything else. It's over very quickly, doesn't seem to be importantin any way, I generally ignore it.

The next scene we meet Tsukasa, whowill be our main character. He's unconscious on the ground at firstin a chamber that appears to be defined by a rib cage. It's adungeon (place to go on adventures and fight monsters, not a place tokeep prisoners) in the game The World.

When he wakes up he starts to makenoise, and that's what I'm going to be talking about today.

.hack is a very talky series, and Deus Ex is (or at least can be) a very talky video game, so perhaps it isthe case that I'm a very talky person. Though that would be somewhatodd since given a choice between a movie with a bunch of explosionsand one with a bunch of taking, I'll almost certainly pick theexplosion one.

For all of it's talking though there'salso a lot of non-verbal vocalization. Sounds of surprise,confusion, joy, or disappointment. The sound of beginning to speakbut never actually forming a word that Eddie Izzard demonstrates sowell when talking about British movies*. The grunt ofacknowledgment, oddly not the groan of understanding**, screams offrustration, indications of tiredness. The half breaths that one haswhen they've cried so much they can't take a full breath anymore andare left doing something that's neither gasping nor ordinarybreathing but somewhere in between.

A lot of times I notice myself focusingon pauses when I write dialog, it's just how I think about things,.hack seems to look a lot at about those things that are spoken butare not words.

That includes sounds of pain.

And sounds of pain are where we start. Tsukasa starts to pick himself up, shaking, and making pained noises. But the noises aren't right for the setting. Videogames frequentlyhave sounds to indicate pain, but I've never encountered ones thathave this kind of sound. It's simply not the right sound for a game.

In a game when I hear my character inpain it's because something just happened. I was hit or shot or whathave you. I found out that the hazmat suit didn't fully protect mefrom the contaminated water. The sound is there to let me the playerknow that something is wrong, my character is being damaged. Andthus the sound goes away when the damage stops. The pain doesn'tlinger, my character doesn't keep feeling the pain.

Tsukasa's pain is one that didn't goaway when the stimulus stopped. He was hurt, and even though he isno longer being hurt he is still hurting. Everything about himindicates that he is still affected by what has come before. Heshakes as he pushes himself off the ground. The sounds he makes areof one aching. He puts his hand to his head because that appears tohurt as well. And that shouldn't be happening.

When I described The World as an audiovisual experience in the last post that's because it's all it is. Itis not tactile or olfactory. Ir is not anything but visuals andsounds. It's what you see and hear, not what you touch, or smell andcertainly not pain.

Yet that's what Tsukasa is feelingright now. If you've ever crashed face first into the ground thenhow he's acting is probably somewhat familiar. Yes, the impacthurts, but it's not like you're all better once the immediate pain of impact goes away. Other pain lingers.

Tsukasa should not be feeling this. Tsukasa should not be making these noises or moving this way. Thegame shouldn't cause pain. It can't. It's just a headset hooked upto a computer. Your body is safe in the real world operating thecontrols either on a controller or a keyboard. There's no way forpain to be caused except perhaps finger strain. This cannot happen,and yet it is.

The only suffering that should be ableto be inflicted is psychological. For the game to cause physicalpain is impossible. And yet here it is happening. It's the first ofmany impossibilities.

When Tsukasa puts his hand to his headhe feels that there's slime on it. Again, impossible. His handshould be on a controller. Reaching his hand to his head might causehim to bonk himself in the head with the controller, it would not actuallyhave his character's hand touch his character's head (to make his character touch his head he'd need to actually use the controller) and if he did punch the keysnecessary for a hand on his head emote from his character, he stillshouldn't feel the slime.

He picks up his other hand, also slimy,and looks that the way the slime acts when he presses his fingerstogether and pulls them apart, doubtless feeling the sensation aswell.

He gets all the way to his feet, withsome more pained sounds on the way up, and stands unsteadily while hetries to figure out what's going on. He looks a at treasure chest infront of him as he tries to remember how he got here.

The impossibilities surround Tsukasawill drive the entire series, his memories will play a pretty bigrole as well. They're fragmented and unclear and in some caseswholly false. He doesn't know it yet, but he doesn't remember who heis.

It's impossible to know how much aviewer will know about what they're seeing coming into something. Myfirst exposure to .hack was seeing the 9^th episode withabsolutely no information on what the series was about. Otherspresumably heard about it ahead of time and given that it's currentlypart of a major series across various forms of media a lot of peopleprobably know quite a bit coming into their first viewing. On theother hand some people probably know as little as I did.

Without knowledge of the setting thisis just an unconscious person standing up, being somewhat shaky andachy, and really good music in the background (you can basically addthat to the description of just about any scene in the series.) It'sover fairly quickly, a minute maybe less, and you probably wouldn't take a lot from it. Onsecond and later viewings it becomes unmissable that everything aboutthis is impossible. There is no way for Tsukasa to feel that pain. There's no way for him to feel that slime.

It can't happen; it is happening. Andthat's what the series is built around.

There is no question that for me theprimary draw to the series is Tsukasa. As some who has had to dealwith depression and feelings of isolation and some of the otherstuff Tsukasa has to face (though thankfully not all of it) Iidentify very strongly with the character.

It's recently occurred to me thatthere's another reason as well.

I lost interest in CSI a long time agobecause nothing ever gets better. Nothing can get better. They're dealing with dead people. Everything has already gone wrong. Episodes will either be depressing or more depressing. They catchthe killer or the killer gets away but for the victim nothing. Sometimes it turns out that the victim died for no reason whatsoever. Someone was in the wrong place at the wrong time, someone put thewrong name on flowers, chaos theory conspired to kill a girl in asenseless way. Every time it's like a punch to the gut, and everepisode delivers the same message: it never, ever, gets better. Onthe rare occasion that they have a living victim (I think I've onlyseen it once) you know that person is going to die.

Oddly I don't have the same reaction toNCIS, I think because NCIS is set in an alternate reality where youcan steal the president's plane with no ill effects and smack peoplein the back of the head without being abusive. That kind of takesthe edge of the death.

Anyway, in .hack Tsukasa is the victim,and he's put through hell --I feel tears coming on just thinking aboutit (but I didn't cry when I watched the whole series yesterday,what's up with that?)-- but he's not dead. He's not a tragedy thatexists only so that the CSI team's personal drama can play out orHoratio can deliver a one liner. He's the victim but he's front andcenter, it's his story and whatever heartache there may be along theway it can get better.

It doesn't have to be a tragedy. Thereis hope.

It is, perhaps, an unreasonably hopefulstory. Things can work out. Just this once, Rose, everybody lives. It presents an idea that we can have a story without piles of humanwreckage along the way. We do not need to sacrifice victim of theweek on the altar of plot. In the real world there is sufferingeverywhere, and in .hack as well, but in fiction there can exist thehope that you might move beyond that.

When was the last time there was an epic quest in which no villagers were harmed along the way? Though Ido have to admit that it's not all happy in .hack. Sacrifices aremade, one in particular, but there's such a big difference betweensacrificing oneself and being a victim. The message, if one can befound, of .hack//SIGN is that you can choose to do the former, butyou don't need to be the latter. Even if the world itself is conspiring against you, it's possible to stop being a victim.

Even in very happy stories, you don'tusually get that message. You get the message that that's the caseif you're the hero. But if you're an incidentalcharacter then you may well be screwed. .hack//SIGN, probablylargely due to it's setting, is able avoid that. For the most part.

The worst incidental characters have to suffer is having their characters reset to their previous save.

* I don't feel comfortable including this in the main text without the warning that if you keep on viewing passed when he switched to talking about Hollywood movies it is not safe for work at all. Before that it's very tame and entirely safe. After that you can expect frequent loud uses of the word "fuck" references to previous parts of the show which will make no sense to you if you haven't seen it, and one of those uses the idea of baby killing for humor. That probably sounds worse than it is, but better to sound worse than to sound better and have it take you off guard. The clip can be found here.

The show the clip is from is called Dress To Kill and I, personally, find it hilarious. I have since I first saw it years ago on HBO, and I'm happy I got it on DVD instead of just sticking with the tape I made of it back then because some of the things omitted in the HBO versions were also hilarious.

** The groan of understanding is the sound when something's explained and the person realizes, "Oh, it's that." Being myself, I tend to see it with ancient languages, mostly Latin. You've got a bunch of people sitting around a table completely stumped about something and then someone says, "[suchandsuch] takes the dative / it's an accusative of respect / actually that's ablative / an esse was omitted / it's being used in it's storytelling form / whatever" and from everyone at the table you hear the groan of understanding. It's a "Damn it, I should know this and/or I hate those things" sound.

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Deus Ex Training, Part 6: What Is

2012-01-28T11:17:00.000-05:00

[This is part of a series of posts about the game Deus Ex.]

[The series began with this post. The first post in this section is here.]

Last time I talked about what isn't inthis section of training, this time I'll talk about what is.

Welcome to the combat trainingarea. I am Gunther Hermann and I will be monitoring your progresshere. We will start with weapon familiarization.

Everyone say, “Hi, Gunther.”

Hermann Gunther Grassman was a Germanmathematician and linguist. No idea if that's related to Deus Ex'sGunther Hermann, but it seems close enough to be worth pointing out.

Gunther is the first mech you'llencounter. You won't encounter many. There are four characters withmechanical augmentations in Deus Ex. One has what appear to bemedicinal augmentation, and the remaining three are current or formerUNATCO agents. (Two current, one former.) Of the current agents,Gunther is the one who's not evil. That doesn't necessarily meanthat he's good. He believes in something and is willing to kill forit, to the point that the evil one is actively trying to catch up toGunther's kill count.

Gunther is a killer, and it can attimes be difficult to reconcile that with the fact that I feel sorryfor him.

He's a solider who has been manipulated by people who don'tcare about him in the least to kill in the name of justice while he'sactually helping to bring about the opposite. He's made incrediblesacrifices for his work (he gave up his eyes) only to realizethat soon he'll be obsolete. He sees that he's on the way out andthe world he'll be tossed into is one that doesn't exactly like hiskind. Success is possible, as we'll see when we meet the retiredagent, but it's not probable and the stigma will always be there.

He's built his life around a job thathe realizes will soon no longer need him, and he worries theirreversible sacrifices he made for it will come to nothing in theend.

I've heard it said that to be a tragicfigure one can neither be saint not scoundrel. Or something to thateffect. If one is completely evil then their fall is justice ratherthan tragedy. If one is completely good then their fall is abuserather than tragedy. Tragedy happens to those in between. Thosewith enough good for us to want better for them, and enough bad todestroy them.

Gunther is a tragic figure.

Now then, weapon familiarization. Depending on how we divide this up you'll become familiarized withtwo or three weapons. First, pistols:

Your first exercise will be tolearn a little about aiming and targeting. Step up to the shootingrange to the west.

The targets are released by usingthe buttons on the counter. Release the first target and take a fewshots with one of the pistols until it is destroyed. Notice thetargeting reticle appears when you aim at a target.

The shooting range is the sort whereit's a long room with hanging targets that can be moved back andforward in so that one might shoot at various ranges. It makes methink of the shooting range in Lethal Weapon as I write about it, but I don't everremember thinking that while playing. Anyway, it's a shooting range. It looks like a shooting range.

You press a button, a target comesforward to a predetermined range (unlike a real life one you don't get to pick that range) you shoot at it, after a couple ofshots it's destroyed and it seems, oddly, to have been made of glass. Then you wonder what the point of all that was. Well fear not forGunther will tell you:

Good. If you hold your aim for afew seconds before firing you will notice the reticle starts out wideand tightens as you hold. The longer you aim at the target withoutmoving the greater your accuracy will become. Release the secondtarget and aim before shooting this time.

And now I'm thinking of Silverado. Specifically this scene. The guy on the horse gets off several shotsbefore Kevin Kline's character fires one, but it's still Kevin Klinewho ends up alive. Part of the difference in timing is because Klinehasn't loaded his gun when the shooting starts, but if one paysattention they'll see that there's a vast difference in theirshooting styles. Guy on a horse points and immediately shoots, plushe's on a moving horse. Kline's character takes the time to aim witha steady hand, and he's standing still, and so his shot finds itstarget.

I think that's the idea with thismechanic in Deus Ex. Except for the horse part. If you shootimmediately you don't have time to aim. If you fire while runningyour aim will suck. And so the mechanic was created that if you takesome time, find your place of stillness, take a few deep breaths, andline up the shot you'll do better than if you'd just pulled out yourgun and shot immediately.

Of course you don't always have time todo that and so, with two targets destroyed, we move on to the nextroom.

First, though, you have your pistolconfiscated because we can't very well have someone using a pistol ina rifle range, now can we? The trooper doing it has the standard dialog for such a character.

This is the rifle range. Hereyou will learn one of the ways skill level makes a difference in youraccuracy. Step up to the shooting range.

The targets are released by usingthe buttons on the counter. Release the first target and destroy itwith the rifle. Use the rifle's scope by pressing the left bracketkey "[" to turn the scope on.

Using the scope actually does a verygood job of showing what's going on here. The accuracy of any givenshot is going to be based on two things. The first is how accuratethe weapon is. Does the gun shoot straight? The second is howaccurate the shooter is. Does the person shoot straight?

When looking through the scope you canreally see how not straight you're shooting. If you move it's allover the place, if you stay still and take your time it's still notcompletely steady.

As someone who has used rifles atsummer camp and nowhere else, I'm definitely familiar with thewobble. And that's when I'm shooting prone, JC is standing up.

Anyway there will be things that canimprove on the accuracy of the gun, skills improve on the accuracy ofJC. Gunther demonstrates using magic:

Excellent. Now we are going toraise your skill with rifles to Master level. Release the secondtarget and destroy it.

You can do that? How can you do that? Can you do that with other thin- I know Kung-Fu!

This time when you take aim you'llnotice a lack of wobble. Also, you can run and gun at higher skill levels withoutit being absurdly reckless. (Mind you I wouldn't recommend doing itwith a sniper rifle while looking through a scope.) It'll always bebetter to shoot from a still position than to shoot on the move, butif you invest skill points in the appropriate place you'll make it soyou can run and shoot at the same time.

Here's what Gunther has to say:

Good work. As you can see,higher skills give you better range, accuracy, and effectiveness. Proceed to the next area when you are ready.

Yes they do. And this is one areawhere the skills really make sense. There are other things wherethat's not really the case. Actually, even here you can see theskills not making sense if you really dig down on what effectivenessmeans. How would higher skill with a gun cause your bullets to domore damage, for example?

Gameplay mechanics and realism, theydon't always go hand in hand.

Now you've defeated four targets andare familiarized with two weapons. Wasn't that fun?

Another trooper is in another storageroom looking things behind another pane of bullet proof glass to makesure you don't step into the next area armed. The next area isdemolitions, where robots will be blown up to teach you aboutproximity mines and you'll get to both throw and disarm someexplosives. We'll get to that next post.

[Previous]

.hack//SIGN, Before we get started

2012-01-28T00:27:00.002-05:00

This is to be the first in a series of posts on .hack//Sign, henceforth referred to as .hack (pronounced “dot hack”) even though “Sign” might be a more logical choice of name. If it might be confused with other .hack things I'll use the full name.

So I spent the day re-watching theseries, which means that I've spent the day thinking aboutfriendship, and depression, and existential questions, and identity,and memory, and free will, and how that last one relates to beingprogrammed, and pain, and sensation, and despair, and hope, anddisappointment, and support, and good, and evil, and the variousshades of being in between, and love, and I already mentionedfriendship, and family, and failure, and success, and metaphysics,and destiny, and the possibility of a chosen one being chosen on thebasis of being the person most likely to fail, and whatnot, andwhether or not AIs have souls.

Ok, that last one not so much. Itdoesn't require thought. They do. Full stop. Discussion over.Moving on.

Anyway, I made three pre-start things for my Deus Ex thing, it seemed like .hack might merit at least one.

.hack is an anime set in the future. Apparently, and I did not know this, it is set eight years in thefuture. Which in this context means 2010. I could have sworn I readsomewhere that it was in the early teens at least, but the very quicksearch I just ran says 2010.

That's not actually important. It'sespecially unimportant because I'm going to take the anime in itself, and a date isn't mentioned in it. I'm not going to consider prequels or sequels or stuff occurring inparallel. Partially because I agree with Ana's stance on using thesethings when looking at a work, and partially because the one one thatI have actually have first hand experience of is one something that Ididn't like*. Also some of the things I've heard about how theseries has changed over time make me think that I wouldn't like whatI'd find if I branched out.

What is worth knowing is that the showtakes place almost entirely within an MMO, an online game with morethan 20 million users. I've never used an MMO, and I certainlyhaven't used one from the future (or should that be “The Future”?),so I can't say whether the game in the show resembles real games. It's called “The World” it's spread across multiple servers, andit's got an overall fantasy theme.

There aren't any objectives to thegame, just stuff to do. And stuff not to do. The players are leftto themselves to figure out what they're going to get out of it. Fora lot of them it's about going into dungeons and fighting monsters. For others it's killing other player's characters and while I'm suresome of that is by mutual consent (“Let's have a fight, to thedeath”) I'mparticularly thinking about ones who do it in a much more murderyway. For others it's telling the previous group, “Not Cool,” andbacking that up with force if necessary. For some it seems to beabout trading and economics, but those characters aren't reallyfocused on. For some it's just a way to meet people, for some it's aplace to go and be left the fuck alone. Doubtless I've left someout.

There's also a range of thought in howinteraction should go, with some players thinking that it's just agame so anything goes, while others firmly believe that people arepeople regardless of whether or not you happen to be online and thusyou should treat others with respect and empathy and such.

The World is an audio visualexperience, with most people using VR headsets but some simply usingtheir computer monitor. Controllers also vary somewhat. We see somepeople using what look like your standard game controllers whileothers use their keyboards and, presumably, mouse.

Being a virtual world you can'tactually tell who you're talking to. Age, gender, race, all of thesethings are up to the player, not biology. Very little of the showtakes place outside of the game, and pretty much none of that dealswith the mechanics of how the game works, but one wonders if thesoftware includes something to alter one's voice to make it match thecharacter. If it does it apparently doesn't alter accents because atone point a character thought it reasonable to use anothercharacter's lack of accent as evidence that they came from similarlocations.

One also wonders how much input thereis from the players on things like facial expressions.

In theory you could supply a player'sfacial expression directly to the character, in which case theexpression that we see on a character would be indicative of theexpression of the player. On the other hand it is suggested at onepoint that a player might be laughing while the character is not. Ofcourse that could still be possible if facial expression was a formof input. Laughing without being noticed would require muting yourmicrophone, why not also have the ability to stop your expressionfrom being used as input?

And, of course, there are ways tocontrol that that don't involve mapping things from player tocharacter, perhaps there's just a very detailed set of emote keys and key combinations.

Anyway, back to in-world mechanics. There are various character classes, there's never a definitive listgiven and I think the only one that really requires explanation isthat “Wavemaster” means, “Magic user.” A heavy blade, theonly other class name that specifically comes to mind, is someone whouses a really big sword, so the name is pretty self explanatory.

Travel between servers is done viathings called root towns. People can also warp from place to placeusing a “sprite ocarina” which as far as I know is totallyuseless for making music. We certainly never see anyone using one.

I think there was more I wanted to sayon this topic, but I'm very tired and don't remember. So, unless Isuddenly remember, that's my description of how The World works.

I believe that you could probably havean interesting story set in an online world like that in and ofitself, but that's not what .hack is about. The story is about whenimpossible things start happening.

The music is superb, which means that Ishould probably use the CDs I have at some point (I have four CDsworth of soundtrack), to the point that one of the sound options onthe DVDs is to have no talking whatsoever so that you might enjoy themusic on its own. The other options are English and Japanese dialog. When I watched through this time I did it in Japanese with Englishsubtitles. When I go through for the individual posts I'll probablybe doing it in English with no subtitles.

One thing that stands out when watchingin Japanese is how much English is in it. A character gets aguardian which is called his “Guardian”, in English, in themiddle of otherwise Japanese speech. A character responds to aquestion with the English, “No Comment,” and various othermoments sprinkled throughout the show have unexpected English. Theone that repeatedly comes up is that there's a legendary item calledthe “The Key of the Twilight” which is always said in English in spite of being spokenby Japanese people who are speaking Japanese at the time quoting an email that was mostly written inGerman. And sometimes, I swear, they say it with a French accent.

Watching in English you never get asense for the language switching. It's English all the way. It sortof reminds me of Fred Clark's comments about how translations ofDaniel tend to fail to indicate that the language switches.

Anyway, at some point I should be goingthrough the show episode by episode, but I'm not completely sure asto when because right now I've got to translate Catullus. Well,gloss Catullus and familiarize myself with it so I can translatedlater. (If you want to follow along, I'm using Garrison's The Student's Catullus, looking at poem 64 and hoping to be up through line 225 by midweeknext week, preferably earlier.)

*It seemed to mostly revolve around aboy getting angry at people for being attracted to his sister, viaher online avatar, and being weirded out by the fact that he was alsoattracted to his sister's online avatar. Also unnecessary sight gagsand one episode sized retcon that completely changed the meaning ofsomething from .hack//SIGN apparently just for the hell of it.

And more silly than you can shake a stick at, and that's without even taking into account the fact that shaking a stick at silly is itself silly. I don't oppose silly in general (I can prove it, just look here, here, and here) but given that my reaction to the .hack episode "Despair" was basically, "Yes. I know that feeling. I've been there. Almost exactly. This I understand on a visceral level," I don't know that the setting is really the right place of a series based on silly, sight gags, and sexual innuendo. Mind you, I wouldn't have liked the series in question even if it had been a stand alone thing.

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[Next]

Deus Ex Training, Part 5: What isn't

2012-01-26T21:28:00.001-05:00

[This is part of a series of posts about the game Deus Ex.]

[The series began with this post. The first post in this section is here.]

At some point I'm going to need to talkabout what wound up on the cutting room floor if for no other reasonthan the fact that that's basically my area of expertise. Someonecould almost certainly learn more about it than I know with one indepth interview with a member of the design team who was on theproject before the major changes too place, but when it comes towhat's out there now I probably spent years going around the internetlooking for everything that had been said, I contacted some of thedevelopers and two of them even gave me relatively lengthy responses.

When it comes to Deus Ex my generalarea is story, my specialty is removed story. And I may very wellhave proven myself worthy of a degree from internet geek/nerduniversity by saying that.

In the first post in this series Iaddressed a common but unfounded belief that the main character hadtwo different origin stories at different times in development. In a later post I brought up the fact that there actually does appear tohave been a shift in the plan about what happened after the maincharacter's biological parents were killed (original plan was to be award of the state, final version was that he was adopted.) To talkabout changes in the Deus Ex story, though, we don't need to resortto “appear to have been”.

The original plan involved going to amoon base. It was decided, more than half way through development,that that didn't fit thematically with the story which was veryterrestrial. The moon-base as a level was scrapped. (Along with twospace stations.) The original plan involved visiting the war zonethat was Austin, turned out that the technology at the time wasn't upto creating a war zone. The Texas missions were scrapped. (Which iswhy you'll never meet the Russo-Mexican Alliance in Deus Ex.) Theoriginal plan was for there to be missions at The White House and Mt.Weather. After building The White House level they realized that itwasn't very fun, and The White House and Mt. Weather missions werescrapped. The original plan called for liberating a concentrationcamp. The original plan called for a lot of stuff.

One of the reasons that this interestsme is that a lot of the original plan seemed quite awesome. I'vespent more time than I probably should thinking about what little isknown about what might have been, and I've spent pages trying tofigure out ways to potentially work some of it back into an expandedversion of the game. (I write three pages every morning, at least intheory, and most of the time I don't know what to write. Writingabout screwing with the plot of a video game can fill the pagespretty handily on some days.) The conclusion really has to be thatit's nigh impossible, the game as it exists pushes one from oneobjective to the next with a fair amount of urgency. There reallyisn't much in the way of time to stop off in Austin, or liberate aconcentration camp, or go to the moon.

Anyway, that's all out there, and I'llprobably make reference to it at various points in this commentary.

As for why I'm bringing it up now,well, it's interesting that one of the few areas where no one everthought to speculate or ask is one of the things that we can know themost about. People speculated about the possibility that JC had acompletely different backstory based on the questionable applicationof a single rarely used word derived from the Latin. People wonderedabout where the main character was to go and what he was to do whenhe go there, people wondered about all kinds of things. But no onewondered about training.

It's training. What could possibly beworth talking about here. What changes could have been made totraining?

It turns out, quite a lot. Well, quitea lot in the context of how little goes on in training. Not nearlyso much in the context of any other mission.

This part of the mission, as it existsin the game, is pretty straightforward and pretty boring. It's more“don't forget to left click” stuff, basically. We'll get to thatlater. This part of the mission, as it exists in the dialog files,is another matter entirely.

20% of the dialog written and recordedfor training was not used in the game. That's by lines, and mycompletely unscientific feeling is that if one did it by word count(which would take more time and effort than I think it's worth) itwould turn out to be an even larger portion. Especially if onecompares the dialog used in this specific map you can see a massivechange. The the amount of lines omitted is 60 percent the size ofthe amount of lines included. (Again, by number of lines, not byword count.)

So what was omitted? Well, basically,interesting stuff.

There were, apparently, multiple targetranges that would be more interesting than the the ones thatremained, one of them simulating urban combat. Which is the sort ofthing one might expect to have in the training of an agent and couldalso be, potentially, fun to do.

There was also to be a combat arenawhere you fought robots to practice with your weapons, which makeslittle sense in universe (robots are presumably not cheap, blowingthem up to train people seems unwise) but it's no more nonsensicalthan things that stayed in training.

Also there was a chance to use an EMPgrenade, which I think makes a bit more sense as a training exercisethan the explosives you did end up working with. Not only would itnot kill you, it wouldn't blow up the stuff you tried it out oneither. (Though I get the impression that the work with explosiveswould have been in the training mission regardless)

Anyway, in alphabetical order (which ishow one finds them in game files), these are all of the lines fromthe cut content in training:

DL_Arena:

Take the weaponson the table. Each of the buttons on the table releases one robot inthe room which you will face in combat. Only after the robots aredefeated will the doors to the exit open. If you are as good as theysay then you should have no problem in taking on all four at once.

DL_DestroyObject:

Notice the twoobjects at the far end. One is a camera and the other is anautoturret. They are tough to destroy and will require an explosiveor an EMP grenade. Try this with one of these on the table. Use theledge for cover. When the devices are neutralized, the switch nearthe turret will open the door, and you can go up to the Combat Arena.

DL_EMP:

You have releaseda robot from the central bunker. Throw an EMP greande at the robot. If the grenade explodes in close enough proximity to the robot itwill shut it down. EMP grenades are also useful in shutting downcamera systems, autoturrets and proximity explosives, such as theLAM.

DL_GEP:

You have releaseda target robot. Use the GEP gun and its tracking rockets to destroythe robot.

DL_Golphers:

This set oftargets is what we like to call the "Prairie Dog" town. Each of the six targets will pop up in a random pattern. Try to takethem out quickly and efficiently .

DL_LAM:

You have releasedanother robot into the arena. Use the LAM, Light Munitions, todestroy it. LAMs are also useful for breeching weak walls, somefencing, and light doors. They also can destroy heavy re-inforcedcameras and autoturrets.

DL_LAW:

This is the LightAnti-Tank weapon or LAW. A static target has appeared on the farside of the compund. Destroy it.

DL_NotArena:

You are eager. Ilike that but first you will need to train in demolition before Iopen the doors to the Combat Arena.

DL_NotOutdoor:

You are not yetready for this area. You need to first go to the static targetrange, next door.

DL_OutdoorRange:

This is theoutdoor target range. Below you is a simulated section of an urbanenvironment. Each of the buttons on the window sill will test yourabilities with the weapons. When you press each button, theappropriate weapon storage case will open. Use that weapon on thetargets provided. If you wish to reset the range, press the buttonon the wall.

DL_Pistols:

Choose your pistolJC. Try to take out the static targets below as quickly as you can. If your accuracy is good you will take them all out with one clip.

DL_Sniping:

In the windows ofthe building on the far side of the arena, you will see movingtargets. Try to use your sniper rifle to take out all of thesetargets.

DL_WelcomeArena:

Welcome to theCombat Arena. The guard will take all of the weapons you haveacquired so far. Step up to the table and I will descibe the arena.

(Typographical errors from theoriginals.)

There's not a lot there, there's not alot in training in general, but it's more than we have of any othercut content. We have omitted conversations here and there, butnothing like the above. You can actually sort of work out the layout of the cut content there. You can get a feel for a level thatdoesn't actually exist. That's pretty much unique in Deus Ex.

Anyway, this is the part where I saysomething like, “Damn, I wish that they'd left in remnants of TheWhite House mission/moonbase instead.”

Actually, there are remains of them, after afashion. Parts of the moonbase level were repurposed for theterrestrial finale level, and some of the textures of it can beaccessed. The White House items that were made can be summoned bythose willing to cheat and the first family appears in one scene. Inthose cases what we have are artifacts, but no written or oral recordto tell us what to make of them. That's annoying. It would be muchnicer if we had text.

It's more than a little bit irritatingthat the one area where we do have text is one where there's nothingplot related happening. We know exactly what the dialog was intendedto be for the cut part of training (you can even listen to it), and have almost no details aboutthe Moon or the White House missions.

-

[Previous][Next]

Random Discussion of Monsters

2012-01-26T20:32:00.000-05:00

[Sometimes you just have to have this conversation, because if one supernatural thing turns out to be real, why not others?]

Asker: “Zombies?”

Experienced Person: “As far as I knowthey don't exist.”

A: “Well that's a let down. Anyother dreams you'd like to shatter?”

EP: “Vampires have no problems withthe sun. It doesn't incinerate them, it doesn't show their truesparkly form, it doesn't reduce their power. It doesn't even givethem a headache. Which is just wrong because bright sunlight givesme a headache and why should they have it easier?

“Werewolves transform into fairlyaverage sized wolves, perhaps a little on the big side and certainlydangerous since wolves are nothing to be trifled with but nothinglike the monsters of movies.

“Uh, what else is there?”

A: “Mummies.”

EP: “Just an embalming technique.”

A: “Tentacled gods from the depths.”

EP: “Suck at chess, have bad breath,and are generally unpleasant to be around.”

A: “You've played chess with one?”

EP: “Technically he was only aquarter god, and definitely was on the mortal side of the divide, buthe was still quite slimy.

*pause*

“He brought his queen out early andunder utilized his knights. Rookie mistakes all around really, whichis odd because I think he was a hundred-a hundred and fifty yearsold. You'd think he'd have gotten better at it by then.”

A: “So you met a slimy betentacleddemigod and played chess with him.”

EP: “There wasn't much else to do. The entrance to the cave had collapsed and we had to wait for someoneto come by and dig us out.”

A: “There was a chess set in a cave?”

EP: “Yes. Why wouldn't there be?”

A: “Ok, we're getting side tracked. Frankenstein's monster?”

EP: “To my knowledge no one has eversuccessfully reanimated a corpse. It's not that hard to make onelook like it's alive, but to actually bring one back to life? No.”

A: “Fungus that takes over your bodyand turns you into a slave?”

EP: “Yes.” *Pause* “Well, after afashion.” *pause* "Sort of. And it's not that hard to cure if youknow that's what you're dealing with.”

A: “Succubi?”

EP: “Human reproductive fluids arehonestly not that important of a commodity in the demon economy. So,no.”

A: “Chupacabra.”

EP: “Well, there are things that suckgoats. I suppose. If you want to look at it that way.”

A: “Bigfoot?”

EP: “Never met him.”

A: “Elves?”

EP: “I did meet a bunch of palepeople with pointy ears and pan flutes in the woods that one time,but I'm still not convinced they weren't human.”

A: “Those things with the thing andthe thing.”

EP: “Those are exactly like thestories say.”

[Original Work]

A message to Windows

2012-01-21T22:34:00.001-05:00

Dear Windows,

When I gave you permission toautomatically download and install updates I do not remember givingyou to restart my computer without my knowledge or consent, Idefinitely don't remember saying you could do that without savinganything first.

I understand that you theoreticallygive some kind of ten or fifteen minute warning but that is in no waysufficient. It is, in fact, completely unacceptable.

Sometimes one steps away from acomputer, notices that there is snow outside that needs to be dealtwith, identifies it as the sort of light snow that can be dealt withwith a broom, and steps outside to deal with things only to discovera giant block of compressed snow and ice about the size of an adulthuman being curled up into a ball if that human were a giant hasfound it's way into the middle of the sidewalk. Then, after failingto budge it, gets a long sturdy piece of wood to use as a lever. When the wood brakes it is obviously natural to realize that oneshould check for knots before choosing which side to apply pressureto. Stick switched the lever works and the giant block of ice becomeseparated from the ground.

Due to the postion of the ice the leveris now useless as an aid and the only thing to do with the giantblock of ice is to roll it up a snow pile. Initial tries fail as theice is too heavy and the ground slipery enough for one's feet to slipout from under them.

The snow pile is modified so that astep now exists for the giant block of ice to be rolled onto, feetagain slip on the slippery ground. Much effort is expended. The icecatches on the step. Much more effort. The ice is rolled upright. It is stable. It is left there.

Sweeping resumes. The sidewalk iscleared.

Once back inside it is discovered thatyou restarted without so much as a pop up message asking if you could.

Damn.

It was not always thus. There was atime when an automatically run update that required a restart wouldbe accompanied by a message saying something along the lines of:

This updaterequires you to restart your computer, please select one of thefollowing:

[Restart now]

[Remind me later]

[I'll restart whenI'm good and ready, don't do a damn thing until then.]

That worked, and it worked well. Ihave no idea why you changed it but it wasn't worth it.

This new, “I'll close every programthe moment you look away,” policy is not good or right or just. Itis not bringing sunshine and light into the world. Nor is itbringing welcome shade or restful dark. It is instead restrictingitself only to the unlikable parts of the visual spectrum. If itwere a light it would be a harsh light that sears one's eyes, if itwere dark it would be the kind of dark that left one straining andfrustrated.

It's not good is the point.

Not everything that one does in asession ought to be saved, many things, once done, need never bereturned to and so saving them is nothing more than a waste of space. But that doesn't mean that ending the session in the middle is ok. Just because something was never meant to be saved doesn't meanconsigning it to oblivion without the user's permission is ok.

Also, not everything can be saved. Late last year my computer was engaged in deep religious meditationthat took days. Three days, if I remember correctly. The programwas running the entire time, and it was using so much by way ofresources that the computer could do little else. There was no way to stop it and save it's progress in the middle, it ran once beginning to end. In the end itworked like a dream, though the input could have been better and thusthe output suffered as a result.

When I consider that even if yourattempt to restart without permission is caught and halted it can'tbe delayed for more than four hours I shudder to think what couldhappen any time a lengthy program is run.

To stop you from ruining that run Iwould have either had to restrict the running of the program to thehours I could watch over it and make sure to delay your destructiveimpulses every four hours, which would have multiplied the length oftime the computer was occupied with that project unnecessarily, or Iwould have had to wake up every four hours for the duration just totell you not to restart. Neither of those is a desirable situationand I count myself as lucky that you didn't go on one of yourdestructive sprees for the duration.

That you cannot conceive that acomputer might need to be used for more than four hours is absurd. You are software. Running computers is what you do. Can you notimagine yourself doing anything productive for more than four hoursstraight?

I also note that you've been trying toinstall the same four updates for months now. You kind of suck atit. I hope they're not as critical as you claim because no matterhow many times my computer is restarted, with my permission orwithout, you have yet to succeed in installing them.

I wonder if part of the problem withour relationship is that you think I have nowhere else to go. Someone I know and respect has recently switched to Mac. I do fearfor her because the last bug I heard about from the Mac side of thecomputing world was more catastrophic than anything I've ever so muchas heard rumors of in windows, but the time that has passed sincethen is evidence that, while the bugs may be apocalyptic in nature,they appear to be rare. It might be like moving to somewhere withoccasional earthquakes to get away from the cold winters. It couldbe conceivable.

I probably won't switch to Mac becausethey don't seem to be nice people, they appear to be auditioning forBig Brother, and I don't mean the TV show, they break their contracts,their record on human rights makes me want to cry, and as near as Ican tell they're in favor of polio (only some of the previoussentence is, strictly speaking, true) but I have other options.

Ten percent of the people who visit myblog use Linux, perhaps I could look into that if you continue to beunkind.

You seem to think that because I'vebeen using you for so long I can't make do on anything else. You'rewrong. You aren't my first. You aren't even my second.

When I wasyoung I used a Commodore 64. It's still around. It's in the basementwith the reel to reel player. If you don't shape up I'll hook it up,plug it in, and find a way to hitch it to you and it can tell youabout how things were when it was your age. Do you really want tohear that lecture?

The TI is down there too. You probablythink they just make calculators and components because you don't payattention.

You're young Windows, younger than me. And that's saying something when it comes to computers. I will getthe older generation to come out of retirement and give you a talking to if I have to. Anddon't think I lack the resources. I have floppy discs that areactually floppy.

Back somewhere in your distantmemories, from older versions back before you were Windows 7, you should have somevague recollection of what that means. Discs that go flop. Now thinkabout what it would be like spending all day, day after day, talkingto computers who thought that that's the height of externalstorage. Think about all your shiny modern game technology, and thenimagine a long rambling speech about Donkey Kong from old Commodore and you with no choice but to listen to every word. (And remember how slow Commodore talks.) Because I'll do it.

I will make you listen to them.

And then, if you still don't shape up,I'll dump you and get another operating system.

Deus Ex Training, Part 4: What The Hell Is Wrong With You People?

2012-01-21T14:46:00.001-05:00

[This is part of a series of posts about the game Deus Ex.]

[The series began with this post. The first post in this section is here.]

So far we've learned to open unlocked doors, unlock doors with keys, break crates, unlock doors with lockpicks, use keypads, and bypass keypads. We just had all of our equipment confiscated so I wonder what could be next. The sign on the wall says medical, we open the door and … oh my God! Someone's unconcious on the floor, what horriblething happened here?

Lying in front of you is a bravecadet who volunteered to be rendered unconscious for this nexttraining exercise. Highlight and search him to find the key to themedical room. Afterward, pick up his body and place it on themedical table so that one of my aides can revive him once theexercise is over.

Oh. Right. You knocked someone outfor a training exercise. It makes perfect sense.

The point is to teach you that you cansearch bodies to get stuff, and to teach you that you can movebodies, which will be useful if you don't want guards to go intopanic mode when they come across a comrade of theirs that you'veknocked out or killed. Things will generally go better if they'renot aware they should be in panic mode than if they're activelytrying to find and kill you.

I think that a major missed opportunityin Deus Ex is that apart from right now, the game never considers thepossibility that you might want to move a body for altruistic means. It is totally unprepared to deal with the fact that you might, forexample, knock out someone who you were ordered to kill (whichonlookers will mistake for you actually killing the person) and thentake his body to safety so that when he wakes up he'll be free insteadof dead (which the game totally ignores.)

For that matter, if you thoughtsomeone was worthy of interrogation you might consider capturing them and bringing them back to base. Again, you can do that but the game won't pay attention.

It ignores the fact that you might wantto move someone for any reason other than stopping people fromnoticing that there's a body there.

The biggest problem for me is that itreally seems like this mechanic would be well suited for a resucemission. When you're moving a body you can't do much of anythingelse and you cant move all that fast, so the temptation would alwaysbe there to ditch the person and fight/run/whatever, but if you didthat you'd be ditching the person, and potentially leaving them indanger.

I like that one of the first things TNMdid was to give you the option of accepting a mission to rescue andunconscious person. It seemed like a logical use for this gamemechanic.

Looking in while you ponder all this isa male scientist, possibly the one who was with the female scientist,possibly a different one. It's impossible to tell because backgroundcharacters are forced to share appearances. There is more than onemale scientist appearance, we've seen two already, but I'm not surehow many there are and it is definitely true that when dealing withbackground characters just because they look the same doesn't meanthey are the same.

Anyway, let's put the volunteer on thetable.

Good work. I'll get someone downthere immediately to revive Private Winslow. Move on to the nextarea.

While you're at it, perhaps you couldexplain why he needed to be knocked out in the first place instead ofusing a dummy or something.

The next room is dark, but fortunatelyyou have a light augmentation. Light shines right out of your retinathrough the lens of your eye onto the stuff in front of you creating flashlight. The plan was forenemies to be able to react to this (because shining a flashlightaround is a good way to get noticed and a bad way to remainunnoitced) but that was never implemented.

The room also introduces you to theconcept of a light switch. Amazing, I know. Once you're out ofthere you meet your first repair bot:

You're not a mech, but you'reenough of a machine to need repair bots now and then. If you used upsome bioelectric energy getting through the dark area, for example,this contraption can charge you back up.

Repair bots are like little powersources. If you actually were a mech perhaps they could repair abroken augmentation, like say if your arm had been damaged, but forthe purposes of Deus Ex they can give you a charge, after which theyshut down to recharge themselves, and after that they can give youanother charge.

This one is sitting in place, but theycan actually move around. Unless I'm forgetting something you willnever see one repairing anything.

After that you've completed phase oneof training, you're introduced to cameras and warned that terroristsuse security cameras too so watch out, hidden in the room with thefirst camera is some ammunition which appears to serve no purposebecause there isn't a gun in this entire level. (At least I don't think there is.) You get to do somejumping and crouching then come into a room where... well let's let Jamie explain:

You need to go through the doorup ahead, but it's blocked. Those wooden crates are too big to jumpand too heavy to lift, so use the metal crates near the wall to buildsteps. [snip game mechanics]

Uh, Jamie, those aren't wooden. They're metal. All of the crates in the room are metal. Some ofthem are actual metal crate objects and other are crate shaped gamegeometry with metal crate textures slapped on the outside, butthey're all metal. You know what's not metal? Wood. Wooden cratesare not metal. Metal crates are not wooden. Moving on.

Next we meet a ladder, also there's acandy bar hidden in a pipe.

CHOC-O-LENT DREAM. IT'SCHOCOLATE! IT'S PEOPLE! IT'S BOTH!(tm) 85% Recycled Material.

An obvious reference to Soylent Green if ever there was one. Soylent Green is loosely based on the1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! If you want to know how loosely, the whole “It's people,” thingfrom Soylent Green referenced in Deus Ex does not appear inthe novel. Both are about a world struggling under the weight ofoverpopulation, though, and are thus wholly unlike the depopulated world ofDeus Ex. As I said before, just because something is a referencedoesn't mean that we should assume things are the same.

Then we come to the thing I was talkingabout when I said training is here so you don't forget to left click:

We get some complaints about thisswimming obstacle because the water's contaminated. Recruits forgetto grab the HazMat suit and end up in my office. Not pretty. Orthey forget that they have to put the suit on by selecting it andpressing the left mouse button. Remember that the HazMat isdisposable; you can wear it only once, and it operates only for afixed duration. Use the ramp on the other side of the pool to climbout.

No. You get complaints about theswimming obstacle because even with the hazmat suit you get injuredand what the fucking fuck? What possible purpose does this serve, Jamie? You're a doctor you bastard. Do No Harm. Why do you need tosee if I can swim in a straight line in a hazmat suit anyway? Andeven if that is vitally important the water doesn't actually need tobe contaminated. You could just say, “Pretend the water iscontaminated," and I'd play along. Seriously, what's next? Having medefuse real bombs and get real bullets fired at me?

Wait! Forget I said that. Never mind. Do not take notes. Please, just pretend I never said anything.

Anyway, what is the real purpose ofthis? Is it just so you can watch me get hurt? It is, isn't it? That's why there are two windows in this room. The head of UNATCO,Joseph Manderley, is watching me through one of them while hissecretary Janice Reed paces, you watch me through another window, anda female scientist looks at a monitor. You probably all havepopcorn.

In fact, the the reason for it isprobably to force the player to use the medical bot at the far end of theobstacle. These can do for health what the repair bots do for energy. They can also install nano augmentations.

Before I used the medical bot I ate thecandy bar. I healed two points of health. Does that make any sense? Does it matter?

It might be worth pointing out thatDeus Ex has location spesific damage, the locations are your rightleg, your left leg, your right arm, your torso, your left arm, andyour head. Each location has 100 points of health when healthy. Ifthe torso or the head reach zero then you die. If your arms and legs are damaged it's much harder to do things with them. You can reach the point where you are no longer able to stand, for example. (You will never lose the ability to crawl, otherwise there wouldn't be much point in the game going on.)

Moving on we meet another trooper, butI already told you everything he could possibly say. Past him we moveinto the next map. So I'll stop there for now.

[Previous][Next]

Deus Ex Training, Part 3: Books and Coworkers

2012-01-21T14:20:00.000-05:00

[This is part of a series of posts about the game Deus Ex.]

[The series began with this post. The first post in this section is here.]

When we last left off we were in theroom with the multitools getting distracted by unequal representationof men and women. Lets talk about the multitools.

Multitools, like lockpicks, aredisposable items. Use them once then throw them out. Sometimesyou'll have to use more than one of them to bypass a single thingy.

So what qualifies as a thingy?

There is a helpful book to answer thatquestion:

UNATCO TRAINING MANUAL

Section 3C: Multitools

A "multitool" is notreally a tool at all -- not in the usual sense of the word -- but adisposable electronic device that utilizes electromagnetic resonancedetection and frequency modulation to dynamically alter the flow ofcurrent through almost any non-hardened circuitry. Skilled agents canuse the multitool to manipulate code locks, cameras, autogun turrets,alarms, or other security elements.

Note that multitools CANNOT beused for computer information extraction (see Section 5A: Hacking).

As you can see, several things qualifyas a thingy you can bypass. In addition to the keypads, cameras,turrets and alarms mentioned, you can also bypass laser triggeredalarms if you find the control box thing that governs them. Possiblyother things.

This is also a useful example of what Imean about giving the impression of a world beyond the one you see. You can only read Section 3C. Section 3C is in fact the only part ofthe UNATCO Training Manual that exists, but the mere fact that it isSection 3C implies that there's more to it and the reference toSection 5A makes that explicit.

When Deus Ex quotes any book thequotation is a short thing like this, but if it happens to be LionelGiles' 1910 translation of Sun Tzu's The Art of War without translator's commentary (Gutenberg Link), Chapter 3, Sections One and Two, you know that there's more of itthan what you're seeing in the game and, I think, that makes it sothat when you read a small section of a fictional book you're readyto accept it as a small section of a larger work rather than apamphlet of game design.

The fact that it is possible to buythat version of The Art of War (Amazon Link) so that you might hold a paper version in your hands and read it like the actual book it is gives people the impression that the same might betrue of Jacob's Shadow, a fictional book excerpts of which appear inDeus Ex.

This is hardly the only thing the gamedoes to give an impression of a world beyond the walls of a givenlevel, but does seem to be worth noting.

Next to the book is a datacube:

Almost done, but one quick note:

I'm not exactly the expert onthis sort of thing -- for that you'll have to check in with SamCarter when you get to Liberty Island -- but remember that there'sany number of other ways to open a door, including using explosivesor finding a security computer.

Jaime

I've played this game before, Jamie, Iknow that I'm not almost done. There are three training maps and I'mnot yet finished with the first section of the first one. Though ifyou mean almost done with that first section, ok, I can believe that.

By an extraordinary coincidence, whilewriting this part I ran into someone quoting me on the internet:

"Thereis a door, you will be required to get through it. If you cannotthink of at least three ways to do that, perhaps Deus Ex is not thegame for you." -christhe cynic

That's somewhat glib and not entirelytrue, you only need to get through any given door in a single way,and it was written as part of something humorous, but it does giveyou an idea of how serious they were about there being multiplesolutions.

Use a multitool on the keypad and in the hall youmeet your first trooper. If you're playing without any modificationsto graphics, as I am at the moment, you might notice that his eyesare all screwy looking. Some people have created complex anddetailed theories about why that is involving all sorts ofinteresting things. It's a bug. As I've said before, sometimes youcan read too much into the wrong things. It's an easily correctablebug I'm told, but those who know how these things work assure me thathaving looked at it it is definitely a bug. (Also it was corrected when the game was ported to another platform.)

Anyway, the trooper is in some sort ofa storeroom and he takes all of your equipment while saying one ofthree things to you:

I'm here to pick up all munitionsand equipment. Thanks for the cooperation, Agent.

Hand in your equipment. That'sright: no cheating.

You've got to start the nextsection without arms or tools. Rules are rules.

If you were stuck in there all dayyou'd probably start making up rhymes too. If you linger he'll sayone of five things:

You aren't done yet...

Got you running the course, huh? Don't sweat it; everybody has to do it once, even the special agents.

Carry on with the training,Agent. I'm just here to take care of your gear.

So far, so good...

This thing's a bitch, isn't it? Last time I did it... Man, I sprained my ankle on the jumping part. They should get rid of crazy stuff like that. Someone'll break theirneck.

From which I guess we learn that peoplestill use sexist abilist language in the future, and you're a specialagent. Note that these things are said with very different tones. And that they are not meant to be played all at the same time. I doubt we'reeven meant to think of them as coming from the same people, there aremultiple troopers who share these lines and none of them have names.

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