New JRPG Plays Itself, and I Have Thoughts

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As I type this, my Nintendo Switch is running in the other room. I have a Joy-Con controller strap tightened around a Pro Controller, keeping a button depressed.

An option has been activated to have the battle play itself. Moreover, another option has been activated to automatically play through the same battle again. Depressing the intended button has the effect of fast-forwarding the battle, expediting the process.

By the time I return to the game, I expect my characters to have gained substantial levels. To speed up the outcome, I’ve maxed out the stage’s difficulty, further increasing the returns.

Next week, Disgaea 6 is released on Nintendo Switch’s eShop. Already, the demo is available. Included in the demo is the option to allow the game to power-level your characters for you, potentially granting you an immensely strong army of characters to reward your patience.

You can even program how characters behave in battle through the use of flowcharts specific to each individual character.

This got me to thinking: the trend where machines do things for us has even extended to the games we play, to the point that they’ll literally play our games for us.

Think about it: There are kiosks in fast-food joints that take our orders for us, replacing rude employees that want $15/hr for low-skill-low-output work. There are drones that autonomously identify and open fire upon humans that intrude in certain areas. There are robots that you can buy at Walmart that will vacuum your carpets for you.

We’ve gotten to the point that technology can do many of our tasks for us, even going as far as doing the jobs few people want to. As fascinating as this is, it brings up a question with some worrisome implications:

Is it becoming harder for humans to justify our collective existences?

At first blush, it would appear as though all of humanity would benefit from having most things automated. However, when considering the wealth generated by robots, it becomes evident that those who benefit from them the most would be the ones who reap the wealth they generate.

The justification for work done by humans is that in exchange for our time and effort, we are paid. But if robots take all the work, how do humans get paid? Perhaps a form of Universal Basic Income could provide for all those meatbags that have been put out of work, but the fact is, that money would still represent goods and services by virtue of the fact that they would be what that money would be exchanged for.

What it would basically come down to is everyone living on the providence of those who run the machines. The tech oligarchs would effectively become the most powerful people in society.

Under this scenario, the existence of these tech oligarchs as a special interest would soon result in a merger of corporation and state, with said oligarchs soon recognizing an incentive in the mass-removal of those who have the potential to threaten the system, and thus their control of the currency and means of production.

But hey, what historical precedent exists for that kind of scenario?

As much backtracking as it takes to go back to a video game from a grimdark dystopian futuristic scenario, there is a point to video games: to play them. Not that I’m against skipping redundant power-leveling where it can reasonably be done, and it’s certainly great to return to a game after an hour to find that your characters are much more powerful than when you left them.

Having said that, when we buy a video game, we’re paying for an experience. In a similar way that we can justify paying to see a movie or attend a sporting event, we can justify playing games based on how rewarding it is to overcome the challenge that the games present to us, as well as whatever other rewarding aspects there may be to the game, even if we don’t necessarily come away with anything material for the experience.

A moment enjoyed is not wasted.

Am I saying to not let your games autoplay? No, you can play with whatever playstyle suits you. Part of what makes Disgaea an interesting experience is that it rewards players for finding ways to game the system, and the sixth installment gives players another way to do so.

Just how much we allow our robots to do for us is up to us. But if we go too far, we might not have much to show when it comes to lived experience.

The EMP: The Ultimate Survival Scenario

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Photo from NASA

If you’ve been preparing for the zombie apocalypse, you’ve probably just been playing some video games. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But considering that dogs haven’t yet spread rabies to every other mammal on the continent, it’s possible that things might not go the way the zombie apocalypse prepper might think.

In reality, in today’s connected world, the ultimate survival scenario would be one where the world suddenly becomes a lot less connected. An entire continent can go dark. Nearly all electronics and electrical systems would instantaneously cease functioning. Bronies losing access to their DeviantArt accounts would instantly despair.

And all this can happen in an instant.

There are two main ways that this could occur. One is for a long-range, manufactured EMP to be strategically detonated. Such a device could be mounted to an ICBM, then detonated hundreds of miles above a strategically-chosen point. (Detonating one on earth’s surface wouldn’t work as well, considering the curvature of the earth.) A carefully-positioned one could include all 48 states of the continental US, or all of Europe.

Like any ICBM, defense systems would likely detect them as they come, mistake them for having been nuclear-armed, and possibly result in a retaliatory strike. Which would be, of course, vintage bad news.

So, what’s the other main way an EMP can arrive at our collective doorsteps? Via the sun. The closest star to us is mostly stable, but sometimes lets out bursts of radiation in random directions. If one were to go off right now, the odds of it hitting earth in 8 minutes (the approximate time it takes for light from the sun to get here) would be low, as the likelihood that we’d be in its area of effect is low.

But it has happened, presumably throughout human history. In most instances, we would not have had the means to know it was going on. But in the days of the telegraph, there was a point in which the telegraphs were going crazy. It was an anomaly at the time, but at this point, the culprit seems to be solar activity.

If earth were to be hit with an EMP from the sun, the entire side of the earth facing the sun at the time would be hit with its effects. And there’d be pretty much no warning.

Now for the fun question. How would the event go down?

The answer depends pretty much on where you happen to be at the instant the EMP occurs. You pretty much don’t want to be in an elevator, on the operating table, or in traffic.

Suppose you were at work. Suddenly, the lights went out. For an instant, it seems like an ordinary power outage. But then, people start checking their phones to see what’s going on.

But the phones don’t work, either.

None of the electronics work. None of them. Even those with their own power supply, such as laptops and smartphones, go out. And none of them come back on. No desklamps, no florescent lights, and if your room doesn’t have a window, it just went entirely black.

A peek outside shows mayhem. Cars have collided. Traffic lights are out. Most cars are sitting in place, their operators desperately attempting to start their vehicles up again. Some motorists may have already abandoned their cars, starting out on journeys to find loved ones and perhaps get to the bottom of what’s going on.

People in major cities that survive the first few minutes will prioritize escaping from those cities, with roads and bridges being packed with pedestrians, some stampeding.

Schools will be flooded with parents, desperate to find their children safe.

Store shelves will be ransacked, stripped bare by people unable to buy anything.

Marauders will take to the streets, looking to gather up anything that could help their friends, families, and themselves survive.

Electronic money would disappear, vaporizing savings and investments. People would barter with supplies, as money becomes nearly worthless.

Chaos would reign, as what police would remain would hardly be able to maintain order, with many of them prioritizing protecting their own families.

You’ll lose your progress in Pokémon Go.

And it’s going to get a lot worse. It’s been estimated that if an EMP were to occur in the US, as many as 90% of Americans would die within one year of the initial event.

Do you have what it takes to be among the 10% that would make it?

If you have the idea of fleeing to the woods, you wouldn’t be the only one. You’d likely run into other people out there, and any interaction with them could be potentially dangerous.

The Amish would suddenly be the most enlightened people around, as people from all over would turn to them to determine how to get by.

This should be obvious, but mental health would take a massive hit. There will be plenty of people prowling about that won’t be safe to have around.

What makes the EMP the ultimate survival scenario is that it puts people against people. With law enforcement and basic amenities unavailable, cities would transform into battles royale just for the means to survive from one day to the next. No one would be safe, as communities would resort to old-fashioned lookouts to protect themselves. Those who accrued massive wealth might find themselves ordinary people in a hurry.

Those who know each other well enough to trust each other would have to work together as tight-knit communities to survive.

Friends and relatives that live as few as a dozen miles away you might never see again.

Also (and here’s food for thought), a foreign power on the other side of the world might seize the situation for their benefit, and you might not even know your own country is being invaded.

While people are certainly capable of surviving without electricity, most people alive in the connected world today don’t know how. If the lights were to go out, and not come back on, they’d be in a pretty bad spot. When the sun goes down, they might be surprised at just how dark it could get.

A lot to think about, isn’t it? The more survivalist know-how and the better prepared you are, the better off you’d be. But things would still be pretty rough. After all, your goal is to be among the few, the ten-percenters, who survive the first year after the point that things go dark.

Do you think you have what it takes?

My Opinion of the Disgaea 6 Demo

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While Disgaea 6 doesn’t drop in North America for Switch until June 29th, the demo for the game is already available on the eShop for free. I’ve decided to check it out, and here is my first impression.

By the looks of it, most of the major systems that you’d remember from Disgaea 5 are there: Quests, Squads, the Skill Shop, they’re there. By the looks of it, the Rage charge feature is out. But as you may expect, mainstays like the Dark Assembly and Item World will be in the final game, even if the Item World is unavailable in the demo.

As far as the gameplay mechanics go, they weren’t broken, so it’s great that they didn’t try to fix them. Okay, they are broken, but in a way that one would expect from the SRPG that deconstructs the genre and embraces everything about SRPGs that make them look overwhelming to those outside looking in.

The first obvious thing that makes Disgaea 6 different is the graphics. I’m not too fond of the idea that the colorful, stylized sprite art has been thrown out in favor of cel-shaded 3D models. Having said that, they don’t look bad, either. Would it have been too much to ask to have given the models outlines so that they’d look more like anime characters, considering that’s what they were going for?

Screen from Gematsu, showing combat.

However, when characters use skills, the animations feature more anime-style models with outlines. These look great. But it also makes the lack of outlines for the regular character models more conspicuous by reason of their absence.

I mostly ignored the story in Disgaea 5, because I didn’t really like it early on. But from what I’ve seen of the story in Disgaea 6 so far, it’s actually interesting. It starts out with the main character, Zed, and his dog breaking in to the Darkest Assembly. There is a meeting in progress concerning what to do about a super-strong overlord wreaking havok. Zed comes in claiming that he already beat the overlord, and from there, it seems that much of the game’s story is Zed recounting to the Darkest Assembly how it happened.

That’s actually pretty clever. If I were to get the full game, I might actually pay attention to the story, this time.

One thing to know about this game is that it’s one of those odd instances in Japanese media where the characters look childish, but the game has humor that more geared towards grown-ups. Even at the game’s outset, it hits with some pretty hard language. That goes to show just how much more laid-back Nintendo has become when it comes to the games that are made for it’s systems. But it might not be a bad idea to wait until the kids are in bed before having a go at this one.

If you’re worried about how the power creep has been hitting the Disgaea series, it pretty much hit Disgaea 6 like a Buick. It’s my understanding that they upped the level cap. That’s right, the game series that’s famous for having characters that could reach level 9999, and have stats in the tens of millions, has actually gone beyond.

Screen from RPGamer, showing a technique in progress. If you could deal quadrillions of points of damage, wouldn’t you smile, too?

What’s more, you also battle higher-level enemies early on, but you also gain more levels at a time, and start out with far higher stats. So, even though you’re playing with higher numbers, mechanically speaking, the game seems to flow in much the same way as previous installments.

While I haven’t given it a try yet, it’s my understanding that there’s an auto-battle feature to help take the edge off the repetitive grinding that you usually see out of this series. As odd as that might sound to console gamers, auto-battle and skip features have been a staple in cellular games for years. It might turn out to be a very welcome QOL feature for fans of a series famous for it’s mechanical power-leveling.

The save data from the demo is supposed to be able to carry over to the full version of the game, so if you really hack away at it, you can get a substantial head-start by the time the game comes out.

Would I buy the full game? Maybe. At this point, the main thing I’d hold against it is that the change in graphical style is a bit of a departure from what I’m used to seeing out of the series. Other than that, it’s looking like Disgaea 6 might actually be a winner.

Strike that giant enemy crab, for massive damage.

Shower Thought: Reality’s Political Bias

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“Reality has a well-known liberal bias.”

Stephen Colbert

Stephen Colbert is famous for stating the above. But does reality have a left-wing bias, assuming that’s what he meant? It doesn’t, and it becomes evident from the following point:

Whether a person is in touch with reality tends to express itself in that person’s ability to survive in the real world.

From Shawn Lynch on YouTube

If you were to drop an equal amount of left-wingers and right-wingers into the woods, each one on their own, to fend for themselves for a set amount of time, the expectation is that more right-wingers would survive, given similar circumstances.

This is because the right tends to be better informed when it comes to survivalism. They’d feel more at-home in the wild because they’d be more likely to understand how to bivouac, find potable water, make a fire, make basic tools from what’s available, and so on.

On the other hand, the typical leftist wouldn’t be expected to know what to do. While one might imagine that they’d meet their end in an encounter with a wild bear, they’d be surprisingly likely to be ended by a plant, as it might not even occur to them that a poisonous plant could pass for something edible.

Shanghai, From WallUp.net

Of course, most humans don’t live in the woods. So, how would the same people fare if made to survive in today’s connected world?

We actually have many, many real-life examples as far as this goes. The typical right-winger more often tends towards living in homes in suburbs and rural areas, and owning one or two automobiles. They’re also more likely to have a spouse and a number of children, which they are able to support because they tend more towards employment in skilled trades, which pay better but require skills for employers to consider hiring them.

As for leftists, they tend more towards living in cities. They are far more likely to live in one-bedroom apartments, and are less likely to be in a committed relationship. They’re more likely to end up in low-pay, low-qualification jobs in spite of their education, but are also less likely to have anyone depending on them.

Living in these conditions, left-wingers tend to be more bitter, as it’s plain to see that they’re not fulfilled living in such a state. Many of them could turn their situation around, if they would develop the introspection needed to understand that they are responsible for themselves.

Considering all this, it’s interesting to consider that right-wingers favor equality of opportunity, while left-wingers favor equality of outcome.

If you want to see who reality favors, pay attention to those who are better able to handle what reality throws at them.

“A great tactician creates plans. A good tactician recognizes the soundness of a plan presented to him. A fair tactician must see the plan succeed before offering approval. Those with no tactical ability at all may never understand or accept it. Nor will such people understand or accept the tactician. To those without that ability, those who possess it are a mystery. And when a mind is too deficient in understanding, the resulting gap is often filled with resentment.”

Grand Admiral Thrawn

Protect Your Ovaries (from the COVID vaccine)

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You may remember Dave Cullen’s video expose on the effects of the COVID vaccine on fertility, women’s fertility in particular. Embedded above is a clip from Bret Weinstein’s DarkHorse podcast, posted just today, in which he examines data concerning spike protein behavior in those who get the Pfizer coronavirus jab.

The spike proteins gather in female ovaries.

TrialSiteNews points out: “There are areas of the body that are not included here like the injection site (165), liver (24), spleen (23), and adrenals (18). These were not included so you can see more detail. The graph ends at 48 hours because that is the extent of the data provided in the original Pfizer study.”

This is interesting, considering that in Dave’s video, he pointed out that an experimental vaccine, that had previously been tested in Africa, was found to have a detrimental effect on fertility, in females in particular.

As pointed out in Bret’s podcast, the spike proteins don’t gather as much in male testicles, only in female ovaries.

Is this deliberate? And what is the long-term effect of the spike proteins on female fertility? And why is their concentration so much stronger on ovaries than most features of human anatomy?

These questions become more sobering to ponder when you consider the fact that a disproportionate amount of the medical profession and the political left are of the opinion that that there are getting to be a bit too many human beings for this planet’s ability to sustain.

When they say “slow the spread”, do they mean a virus, or do they mean people?

EDIT (22 Jun 2021): The video has since been removed “by the uploader”, as the following graphic would appear to indicate when one attempts to view the above video:

What it looks like when Google lies.

This makes it appear to be the case that Bret Weinstein of DarkHorse has removed the video himself, when in reality, Google has deleted his video, then subsequently put a strike on his channel.

Bret has continued discussion on the topic on his channel, and is not backing down, which makes Google’s action of attributing the censorship of Bret to the man himself more apparent for the deliberate lie that it is.

Here’s the thing about Bret Weinstein: he’s an evolutionary biologist, and therefore, an actual scientist. When Bret Weinstein discussed the implications of harmful spike proteins gathering to the ovaries of women who receive the COVID jab, he did so not as a conspiracy theorist making tenuous connections, but as a reputable scientist interpreting data that was available to the public.

Google’s activities aren’t consistent with the interest of allowing men of science to discuss the implications of available data, but more consistent with censoring dissent in the interest of maintaining a narrative.

Not new activity for Google, and hasn’t been for a long time.

Now for the obvious question: What is with Google’s interest in quashing the truth? If getting this valuable information out there could protect the fertility of millions of women, and by extension preserve the family plans of countless people out there, wouldn’t Google have a moral obligation to expedite the dissemination of this valuable information?

And could there be any correlation with the emerging revelation that Google had actually funded virus research in Wuhan? Why? What is Google’s interest in viruses?

The exciting saga continues.

If it turns out that Pfizer’s vaccine actually is damaging women’s fertility, then when most women find out in a few months, people are going to raise hell.

Why Do People Laugh at Sports Cars?

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This morning, I ended up behind a Monte Carlo in traffic. I had to squint to make out the stylized letters on its decal, because at a distance, it looked like it said, “Idiotmaster”.

It wasn’t until a red light that I made it out. It said, “Intimidator”. And a right bang-up job it was doing.

People who spend something like $100,000 on sports cars have no idea how much the rest of us laugh at them. Like when they blow all that squishy money on some expensive brand name that can go 200 mph.

When is anyone going to drive at 200 mph?

What kind of yutz would spend that kind of money on a car with a benchmark that cannot even be lawfully attained? Even if they were to find the hypothetical stretch of road where such a rate is legal, they’d likely end up behind someone moving at a reasonable speed, because not everyone wants to die in a fiery wreck.

I know that some people would attempt to use “impressing the ladies” as a justification. Trust me, a woman isn’t worth spending time with unless she gives a care how you piss away your money. If you really want to attract women, get a roomy back seat.

Speaking of ridiculous cars, there was a red Jeep that I was stuck behind on a couple different days on the way to work. Maybe it was because the driver thought his Jeep was a truck, because in both cases, it was on a stretch of road where trucks had a reduced speed limit. A Jeep isn’t a truck, it’s more like an ATV with a tarp over it.

But hey, way to live up to that manufactured sense of adventure. Your ability to buy stuff makes you almost as manly as someone who shaves with a straight razor.

While I’m busy criticizing everyone’s choice in automobiles to a greasy pulp, the other day, I saw in the corner of my eye as a car attempted to “rev that engine”, except the loud popping sound came out of their muffler. I know that’s supposed to be impressive, but if it comes from your muffler, it means your heap urgently needs work.

Can we agree at this point that the sports car is not really peak automobile? And that it doesn’t indicate status in the way it once did? Because if we can agree on that, perhaps everyone can stop pretending their pitiful little sedan is something it’s not.

Worse yet, the car smelled really, really bad. As though they tried using the wrong fuel. The pump is a bad place to pretend to drive something you don’t, don’t be stupid.

For the odd idiot out to justify their purchase, no, I’m not picking on sports cars because I can’t afford one. I can afford one. Because they can be financed, nearly everyone can afford them. People laugh at sports cars because they’re ridiculous. It’s as simple as that.

Do Current Events Reflect an Old Simpsons Halloween Special?

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In what may be the most famous Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror episode, the animated sitcom parodied Soylent Green.

The episode started with Bart being sent to detention. But because detention was getting to be too full, the staff decided to get creative in how they punished miscreants.

One thing led to another, and the students soon discovered that “Sloppy Jimbo” was on the cafeteria menu, while Jimbo himself was nowhere to be found. Shortly afterwards, another student was sent to detention, and the menu afterwards featured an item seemingly named for him.

What was happening was that the staff had decided to deal with detention students by adding them to the menu. Worse, they were developing a taste for them.

Soon, the few students that were left were gathered together in the same room, overseen by an overweight teacher. At this point, the students were being sent to detention over the slightest infraction, because the faculty had tasted blood, and couldn’t get enough.

By the time the few students left had realized what was going on well enough to do anything about it, there wasn’t much they could do.

Sound like anything that’s happening today?

This E3, Nintendo pretty much won. Here is my opinion of what’s coming for Switch.

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The Electronics Entertainment Expo (E3) is easily the biggest video game industry trade show of the year. The big console manufacturers and software publishers save some of their finest to collectively show that the future of gaming is bright.

As usual, a curious eye is on the Japanese company that only grudgingly participates, preferring to do things their own way. Even though Nintendo would rather do things on their own time, that doesn’t mean that they don’t take E3 seriously.

It’s been years since Nintendo adopted a hybrid system approach, but it still comes off as weird to me that they have only one main system to present upcoming software. But with what we’ve seen this year, it’s still going to be quite the system.

Considering this, I’ve decided to do less of an analysis and more of a trash-post about my opinions of software coming for Switch. After all, what would a person come to my blog for rather than my opinion? To regurgitate the observations that the news sites are making would be boring.

(Note: Not all these titles may have been shown at E3 this year)

Metroid Dread

This years surprise of the show is the long-thought-cancelled Metroid Dread, AKA Metroid 5! It’s welcome news that Metroid is returning to its 2D platforming roots. The trailer showed a suspenseful scene in which Samus encountered a robot that was immune to her weapons, leaving the hunter powerless to do anything about it but run.

The gameplay showed a chase scene reminiscent of the SA-X scenes in Metroid Fusion. I’ll be honest, I’m not too jazzed about this, as those were my least favorite parts of Fusion. But if Dread allows for plenty of exploration and sequence breaking, it’ll be interesting to see the playstyles that develop when people start speed-running this one.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 (tentative title)

A new trailer showed that the upcoming BotW sequel will have a heavy emphasis on being airborne, with travel to landmasses suspended in the air. It’s reasonable to suspect that this game would sell millions of copies if all it did was provide the same basic experience as BotW, but with a new scenario, so it’s great that they’re willing to go beyond. The trailer concluded with Hyrule Castle being lifted up by dark tendrils, reminiscent of Ganon’s malice.

The trailer showed a release date of 2022, which is still potentially a while away. Have you beaten Ganon on BotW’s Master Mode, yet?

Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp

If all they did with this one was a couple straight ports of the GBA originals, that would have sufficed for me. Not only that, it’d be great to see one of my favorite strategy games getting some attention for the first time in years. But that in itself wouldn’t justify a $60 price tag.

So, they updated the visuals. And, to be honest, I’m not really that impressed. IMO, I think the anime portraits would have been just fine if they just presented sharper, less aliased versions of the originals. But I find how campy the new portraits look to be a bit distracting.

Oh, please.

There’s a lot to Advance Wars to love, but $60 is a lot to ask for a graphically-souped-up bundle of two GBA games.

Metroid Prime 4

We still don’t have anything to show for this one besides its logo. I know Nintendo likes to throw out the assets and restart development on games that stall, with only the ideas of the game developers to go off of (a practice colloquially referred to as “flipping the table”). I’m suspicious that that’s what happened with this one, and it’s difficult to tell when we might see more of it.

Pokemon D+P Remakes, and Legends: Arceus

I’m still looking forward to the upcoming Pokemon offerings. Because of course. Even at it’s weakest, Pokemon is still fun to play.

As much as I’ve criticized the artistic direction of the D+P remakes, they’d be what I’m looking forward to. Having said that, they definitely could use outlining and cel-shading, so they’d look like the anime-style games that they are.

Splatoon 3

I passed on the first Splatoon, but when I broke down and decided to try its sequel, I found out I was missing out. Splatoon has the potential to rival Mario Kart as the Nintendo party game. But more people need to give it a chance.

And why not? If you bought a Nintendo system, why would something that’s weird and different be off the table?

Disgaea 6: Defiance of Destiny

I’ve already given an opinion on this one, but I’m a bit more open-minded about it now. The gameplay system doesn’t seem like it will change much, which is to be expected. But by the looks of it, you’d have far better animated character models to look at while engaging in hours of repetitive grinding to stand a chance against Tyrant Baal.

Why wouldn’t it be that guy again?

Axiom Verge 2

Thomas Happ is a total badass, and I recommend playing the original before the sequel drops. It’s been delayed multiple times, but I’m still looking forward to the sequel to one of the all-time best indie games.

Happ has pointed out that, if players desire, they could play the sequel first and still enjoy the first when they get around to it. Early material was vague as to whether the second game is in fact a sequel, or a prequel. With how clever Happ has proven himself to be, it’s reasonable to expect something special.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate

This game is already out, so why the mention? Because they’re still releasing fighters for it (this time, Kazuya from Tekken). Also, believe it or not, I still haven’t gotten it. Even though they made my dream come true and brought Sephiroth to the fray. Maybe I need more money.

Guardians of the Galaxy

This multiplatform game is also coming to Switch. A noteworthy thing about it is that it will be a streaming game, like something you’d play on Stadia. Personally, I’m not that fond of that idea, as I’d prefer to have a version to play offline, and the knowledge that I’d have a copy of the game that survives the server that hosted the original.

I’m normally somewhat suspicious of licensed games, but I liked the movies, so I might find something endearing, here. Even if just for the duo of Rocket and Groot.

I doubt I’d buy all these games. To play through them all would be a tall order. Sometimes, you gotta choose, and the choice is not easy.

How to Get Moral Busybodies Off Your Entertainment

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Their first-century equivalent

From time to time, you hear about someone who criticizes entertainment, but with a twist: they’ll attempt to use religion in an attempt to prop up their smug sense of self-righteousness.

It’s usually something inane, like ignorantly accusing Pokémon of being satanic, or some other mainstream video game of having harmful moral side-effects.

Oftentimes, gamers will cite studies that conclusively show that such claims are bogus. This is an effective defense, but in the long run, the busybodies keep coming back, and that’s because they love picking fights.

This can leave quite a few people perplexed. Just what does a person have to do to drive these people off, and keep them away?

The problem is that people respond to them by remaining on the defensive. In order to have a lasting effect on these people, you have to go on the offensive, with a counter-argument that’s especially designed to make them sorry they messed with you.

Here is what you say: You point out that they are complaining about specks that they perceive in other people’s eyes, when there are beams in their own eyes (figuratively speaking, probably).

Point out that if their own Christianity is like what most people call Christianity, then it has the following doctrinal problems:

  • They observe Christmas, Easter, and a handful of other holidays with obvious pagan origins rather than what the Bible says they should observe,
  • They likely also ignore the fourth commandment, and observe Sundays instead,
  • They likely believe that God is a trinity, a concept the Bible nowhere teaches,
  • Their church likely demands more in tithes and offerings than they are entitled to.

There’s more, but that would usually suffice. Then you follow up with this:

That your entertainment wasn’t intended to inform a person as to what their religious, ideological, or philosophical ideals should be, so your entertainment is actually more harmless than their religion.

That one-two punch scores a knockout, in most cases. The first argument wouldn’t work so well on the few Christians that actually do keep it Biblical, but they should also be smart enough to understand that going after a person’s entertainment is actually counterproductive.

After delivering this, you’re done talking to them. They might try to bait you or argue against what you said; it’s a fight they’re after, after all. At this point, they’d be looking for any way to save face. So, don’t take the bait. By engaging them no further, you deny them that opportunity, and their main takeaway becomes what their religion gets wrong.

This works as well as it does because it forces the false Christian to confront what they’re afraid is true about their religion, and the possibility that the truth about it is no longer being obscured by the dark mists of history.

In case any of you are wondering whether I’m Christian, yes, I am. But I’m interested in seeing the Christian world return to the real thing. Also, it would be better if those who claimed to be Christian stopped bothering with pointless, counterproductive fighting over stuff that isn’t causing any harm, anyway.

Spiritual bullies are like any bully; if you’re only on the defensive, they can just keep going at it without any repercussion. To defeat them, you need to dish out a strong counterattack, preferably one that highlights their shortcomings and makes them learn some respect.

Then you leave them to contemplate what just happened.

Review: Nendoroid #167b: Suntanned Cirno

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It happened one hot summer day: A knock at my door. Then, as I opened it, in came an ice fairy. “This is great!” I thought. “With my own ice fairy, I won’t have to pay as much to keep this place cool!” But then, she sat herself down in front of the air conditioner. This was not what I had in mind.

I decided to go for my first Nendoroid, Cirno from the Touhou Project series of video games. This would be the suntanned variant; the ordinary Cirno has lighter skin, doesn’t have the little decorative sunflower, and doesn’t come with the vine.

Here is the back of the box:

One might wonder what the significance of this character would be to me that I’d choose her out of the hundreds of Nendoroid characters available. Come on, it’s Cirno. If you’re familiar with Touhou, it won’t take long to figure out why she’s the most popular character. I liked the suntanned variant because there is a certain irony in that even an ice fairy can only do so much to cope with the hot weather.

I didn’t buy this just to leave it in a box in a closet. I intended to open it. Here are the contents:

Included is a set of faceplates and limbs, giving this expressive character’s figure a variety of possible poses. She also comes with a couple accessories, including an icicle lance, and a small frog encased in ice. If you’re wondering about the bloomers, she comes wearing another pair, which allows for different poses.

Changing the faceplate is a bit of a process. Apparently, the neck (which is articulated) is a part of the faceplate, and changing her faceplate takes undoing her hair.

I didn’t have it out of the box for long before some of the plastic showed signs of stress. Particularly, on a couple of the icy “wings” indicated in the picture above. I’m a little concerned that they might break if I mess with them too much, and goes to show that Nendoroids are mainly just for show, and not so much for the kids to play with.

There she is, set up on the stand! Cirno is adorable, even with her cocky smile. For most of the figure, the paint job is pretty basic, putting aside her hair, which has a nice subtle gradient.

One of Cirno’s accessories is a frog encased in ice. It’s easy to forget sometimes that Cirno can have a bit of a naughty side. She views frogs as inferior creatures, and believes that she has the right to freeze them if she wishes to.

And this is Cirno looking not-so-happy. Perhaps Suwako found out what she’s been doing to the frogs? It’s a bit more obvious in this picture, but the legs bend at the knees. What’s more, they also pivot where they meet her bloomers, so they’re pretty well articulated. But the feet? Not so much. It’s the stand that keeps her upright.

Notice the lack of footwear? Perhaps, when you can fly, shoes are kinda superfluous.

Here’s Cirno in an action pose! I decided that I’d go with this one, and it’s currently sitting on my desk, where the added personality is much-needed.

Now to give Nendoroid #167b: Suntanned Cirno a score. To be honest, I didn’t feel like I got my money’s worth. A typical Nendoroid would set a person back $60, or even more for highly-sought-after characters. That seems like a bit much for what basically comes down to a collection of delicate pieces of plastic.

But because I like the character, I think I can give this product a 7 out of 10.

And I think that’s really the point. A Nendoroid isn’t so much about collecting every single one as it is about having a highly-collectible figure or an attractive conversation piece depicting a character that you really like. If you don’t like the character, then really, what’s the point?

But to be blunt, I think it might be a while before I spring for another one. Marnie from Pokemon, maybe?