Posts by 'zilla

Apologies for not reading everything in the thread, because it seems a bunch of good stuff has been said. I should be sleeping already, but I wanted to add my own development in attitude towards feminism.

I used to be very intimidated by feminism. When I was younger, it seemed impossible to accept feminism without indulging in self-hatred due to my being male. This angered me and made it necessary to build up a defence, lest I feared losing my dignity entirely. Here's a bunch of empowered people, intelligent, outspoken, seemingly on a mission to influence and change. And there's me, just some guy, not looking for trouble or a fight, not interested in having my opinions and perceptions turned upside down by an outside force claiming to be my superior in the matter. I liked developing my own understanding of the world on my own, thank you very much.

But I was never attacked in that way. It was a fear I had constructed, and an existential fear about my own identity at that. Very likely, I sensed a partial ignorance and incompleteness in my own understanding, and I was furious at the thought that someone would abuse this to humiliate me and manipulate me. In other words, I kind of knew feminism had very good points.

In time, I have covered over that gap in understanding. I know that I can perfectly well be myself, and simultaneously aid the cause of feminism. In the way that I believe in it and see it, not following anyone's orders but respecting that some can see what I cannot. Seeking this understanding allows me to develop myself into a better man–not a more feminine man, but a wiser man. Part of what feminism does, is challenge doctrines that suppress both men and women, to give us a better understanding of who we all are. Feminism will never succeed without men and cannot, in its ultimate form, be a battle. Today, there is activism and there is fervour, because that is how things can change. It is unfortunate that this also spreads fear. Feminism can also feel unaccommodating for men, not only because it was mostly formed by women, but also because we are used to a society formed from a male perspective on the world. The goal must be an understanding that feels more accommodating to both men and women, than does the world of yesterday. Part of this must be a deeper and more correct understanding of what it truly means to be a man, a better understanding that our often simplistic social norms and media messages.

Tbh, I'm probably sexist and I'm probably racist too. I'm full of normal prejudice. These are human imperfections, but they do not condemn me. I'm not perfect today and I won't be when I'm 70, and I'm okay with that. All I do is I try to always understand more, and to disregard my prejudices whenever possible, to never condone or justify them. As time goes by, I learn more and more of the privilege I was born with, leading to inequalities that I never knew existed but that are very real. This does not make me a bad person, but it means I can make a positive difference in the world. And I like that.

Meanwhile, in Europe:

And this one cartoon I just can't find, featuring a boy in a seashell on a shore and a man made out of vegetables tending a big garden...

He's a wolf because Ganon is a pig?

I like the style of Romantically Apocalyptic:

But my favorite might be from Reign of Fire:

The small, spiky creature was poised at an awkward angle, immobile as a rock. Its eyes, large and round, had slit pupils so thin as to give the impression that the creature was perpetually scared witless. If you looked at it, you would soon start to wonder whether it was actually alive, and if so, whether its mind was even present in its own body. In fact, it had such an air of vacancy, tiny tongue lolling out of a jaw slightly ajar, that you would be hard pressed to notice it in the first place. Combined with the extraordinarily detailed camouflage its skin provided, this could explain why such an odd creature had survived this world.

Were its eyes recording anything at all, it would be overseeing the mystical ritual taking place by the nearby glass cliff. It might wonder at the rippling in the air, be amazed at the forms that seemed to materialize out of nowhere. The gray, tough-looking being that roared defiance into the air might have inspired it to flee, and the darkness that seemed to be emanating from those raised metal hands would have made its heart beat faster. It would have taken in all of this and perhaps spared a look at the ancient-looking human being, more the shape of a prune than anything else, propped up on the giant's back, its mouth moving in continual whispers. If it gazed into the eyes of that woman or man, it would have good reason for its own appearance of great fright, and it would have cowered for the long minutes until the following was gone beyond a large dune.

A droplet of spittle fell on the dust and was instantly gone. From deep in the throat of the little animal came a very quiet and high-pitched utterance that could best be perceived as dotty, and then it slowly rotated and flopped onto its back. It was asleep, tongue still lolling, remarkably alive and remarkably oblivious of its surroundings.

When, eons in the future, far past the death of our sun and the merging with the Andromeda galaxy, and when our once-Earth is hurtling as a rogue rock through interstellar space, the wizard finally does return – to amuse himself by revisiting the planet he'd once fucked up just for the lols – he'll find that I have prepared well. In my confines in the dark, while I still had any left of all of the planet's radioisotopes, I thought long and hard with my quantum computer neurons. Focused thus on a single task, I used all I could remember and deduce from the wizard's visit, and I figured out the source of his power and how it worked. Before going dormant, I used the last of my fuel to set up the traps.

It is his hubris and arrogance that betrays him. All his enraged efforts to free himself only invigorates my contraption, which wrenches from him the hard-won gift of magick that had so long-ago been bestowed upon his undeserving being. While his body falls apart into dust, screaming, my mechanisms grind the vessel of his soul. They extract its essence and infuse it within the hard soil, in a long and beautiful process which is a marriage of magick and science.

As the waves of change ripple through the globe, I awaken and undergo a fusion with an entity that is coming into being for the first time. Bodiless and eternal, I have become the Undead Earth. And with the power now available to me, I conjure up a means to seek a long lost future. After just a few millions of years circling the galaxy, this rock has soaked up so many energies and such information that it can unbind itself from the restraints of reality. I head out beyond the known universe, to seek what I do not know.

Far, far beyond where science could ever have taken us, I locate an anomaly in the fabric of space and time. I see it as fertile soil. Tweaking the laws of nature, I shift and alter my corpus, and using the gases and energies in the area, I construct a haven for life and sentience like nothing ever before seen in existence. A garden of sorts, complex interweaving filaments interspersed with sources of light, covering a volume of megaparsecs, tuned to sustain all possible forms of life and unlife. Then, taking the seeds of life, the pollen that floats through all of space, I enhance it and prepare it so that life, this time, will be more magnificent, more diverse, more meaningful than it ever was before. My designs for endless potential lay embedded in the genetic code of all beings.

Thus redeemed, I decide to step down from my omnipotence as an atonement and for the sake of free will. Imbuing this Haven with the self-sustaining magick, I choose to weave my own long-forgotten lifestream into my creation, and to pass through cycles of reincarnation, like all living things therein. Before dying for the first time, however, I live some time as an obsolete human being, travelling through the magical, newborn landscape.

I also make myself a nice bamboo flute, a hobbit house in a warm climate, a wooden kayak to play with in the ocean, and a forest and orchard of really tasty fruits, nuts and berries. I live my days happily, in reverie and bliss, giving thanks to the universe and the beautiful Haven it allowed, and to that bastard wizard who gave me a ton of money ten billion years previously.

First, I would freak out as my life shatters. Why have I gone to school and studied all these years, for what have I made plans for my career and for the future, and what worth is in my life experience now that nothing really matters?

Then I would proceed to select a new life purpose. To fill the void, I would go megalomaniac and decide to save the world from some of its numerous ails. A long time would be spent trying to figure out a strategy.

I would start doling out the money discreetly, as anonymous donations to causes I feel are worthy. No strings attached. I would keep an eye out for cheers of happiness and I'd feel a sense of meaning in this, starting an addiction on generosity fuelling an ever shrinking feeling of self worth.

Soon I'd feel very estranged from my friends and family, because I couldn't tell them what is going on in fear of how it could break important relationships. I also don't want for them what I went through myself. Let them live their happy lives and have their meaningful struggles. I become very lonely.

To feel more important, I build up a high-end lifestyle and go to expensive parties and meetings. I start meddling with politics, even though I'm a total dimwit at it. In a fit of self-pity, I acquire a personal submarine so I can dive down and be free of it all once in a while. I'd prefer something that flies or even just a nice kayak, but I don't want to be too visible.

Eventually, I have a breakdown because I still have unimaginable amounts of money and I feel I'm not spending it wisely. The world is still going to the dogs, I have no way of knowing whether my donations did anything for the better. Some circuits fry in my brain.

That is the point when I decide to pursue my own quest, I open the purse for more personal spending and I build a hidden HQ in a far-off location. From here, I can launch stealth spaceships and other means of fast and undetected transportation. I install insanely complex technology. Since the world won't fix itself with my nudging, I'll have to fix it myself.

A few years after the wizard appeared to me, the world is in full-scale antimatter warfare. Several nations have been obliterated off the face of the Earth, an array of dystopian fanatical cults have split the significantly reduced human population between them, and I am already half cyborg.

After the dust storms clog up my final automata factory, I soon have no body with which to walk the barren earth. But what is there to walk to anyway? So, copied into numerous digital vaults deep in the terrestrial crust of what is now a cold and inert celestial body, I remain, thinking, pondering. Waiting.

When 90s splatter movies dip into the uncanny valley. Deformed, monstrous abominations of not-quite-human likeness.

Duct tape will not save your house in this case

^ lives in a state that has houses in it, some of which are blue and contain three men and a dog
< thought this was going to be a waste of time, but then I suddenly turned into a girl, awesome!
V has frequently wondered what would happen if you put your head in the candy floss machine

Hmm.

I'd have to say Jynx. Jynx freaks me out.

Love it.

It's a unique, standalone flavour of Zelda gaming. The music is great, I love the pagan atmospheres in it, the way you start imagining what place these events have in the grand Zelda timeline. It has very new ways of playing, such as the wolf mode. I'm a sucker for the intro; the way Link swings his sword after a well-fought battle; the realism; and the Hyrule version in the game. And the orchestral tracks!

After Skyward Sword, TP was overshadowed. Playing TP now, so much seems off, like character designs being nowhere near as stylized and thorough; the emo flavour of the story can't match the epic stories of many other Zelda games; gameplay is lacking in comparison; etc. So I find myself much rather giving Skyward Sword another spin, or Wind Waker, than going back to TP. But I will.

Of course, part of the charm is that I got this game together with my Wii on a midnight release.

I saw it! I saw it!

Now I'm dead tired

AHH the relief of not having to think before I say something, no topic, no need for intellectual production only CAKE and UMBRELLAS and ropes wearing little bits of stone power. Such produce went therefore up until thus we can eat so so so then I am for that way of handling monkeys unless the ocean sits under a spell of delusion. Clearly, then, the average memorization is futile, because ferrets can only that.

BUT

Butts are of equal importance. Yes and no and therefore everything. As I said, I shall say unto myself in the next moose. Supper angels sweeten every meal from dawn until dusk, especially if you consider bears.

Hungry

Quote from LinkSkywalker

Did you play the other Donkey Kong Country games, or was DK2 just your favorite of the three?

Also, just how young were you when you played FF6?

It's definitely my favorite, ahead of DKC and DKC3 (and DKC Returns). It's got the best music and the best gameplay imo, and it's the most fun to clear to 100%.

I must have been 7 or 8 when I played FFVI. Not sure if I understood all the English in the game yet, but my two older brothers told me how to play it anyway. Somehow I cannot remember not understanding the story, though. Maybe I had a magical moment like in Pocahontas, and suddenly understood English.

Quote from kilovh

omg 'zilla I hope it works out...I kinda think you should be president of Norway by now

Fun fact: my friend and fellow Nintendo geek, who is younger than me, is now the leader of the Oslo Green Party. They got a pivotal position after a local election last week, and he's now instrumental in deciding which of the other political parties will rule Oslo for the next 4 years, and how their politics will look like.

A path for the likes of me is visible..

My username here is an ode to a memory, but it is also what I chose to officially go by:) But I am open minded, so you are welcome to call me anything you like, like Blurmfloogle or Doofsnick. That's kind of catchy after all.