Asexual Awareness

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Adam Randall

Something that frustrates me a lot, is how asexual characters in the media all seem to fall into certain stereotypes – they’re usually very cold, logical and uncaring. Not only is this offensive in the same way that it is always offensive for a whole community of people to be grouped together in a certain way, but the implications are really quite distressing.

Any asexual character in a piece of fiction is generally going to be quite inhuman in some ways – why is this? I guess it’s because writers see sexuality as an integral part of the human experience and do not see asexuality as a valid identity. Because to be asexual, in the eyes of a lot of people, is to be inhuman. It’s not normal. It’s weird. That’s why you never ever have a regular person on a TV show or in a movie who is asexual.

So much of the way people view life and the world around them is in terms of sex and romantic relationships and very few stop to consider that these are not the goals and desires of everybody. People can’t understand that not everybody strives for that and what people can’t understand, they fear, which is why asexual characters are often portrayed as these negative stereotypes. And how does this make asexual people feel? Well, if the media depicts asexuality in a certain way, then people will expect it to be a certain way which will cause asexuals to feel like outcasts. People will become afraid of being open about their asexuality, for fear of being ostracised.

Even things like progressive websites which allow users to select their sexuality for profiles will very rarely offer an option for asexuality. You see people all over the internet complaining that it is a meaningless label used by “special snowflakes” who feel the need to be different, invalidating that identity even further. Meanwhile, the media continues to portray asexuals as uncaring and emotionless people – showing that the average person seems to have an unhealthy mental connections between emotions and affection with sexual desire (when really they can be entirely divorced.)

It’s just something which I find especially frustrating which I felt was worth writing about to help more people be conscious of. I’d also like to add that, while it does frustrate me to see these stereotypes used so regularly, I am still pleased that asexual characters are at least present.

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Bus Justice

Posted on July 9, 2016 by Adam Randall

The other day I was riding home on the bus as I do after work every work day.  Everything seemed fine and everything seemed normal and the bus made it’s way towards Corsham. It passed through Box (a small town before Corsham) and then stopped. I assumed that the bus had broken down, as it often does at that point, but it was something else.

“Two people asked for tickets to Box, but nobody got off at any Box stops. I’m not going to continue until two of you get off. You get what you paid for,” said the driver, displaying an example of bus justice (or bustice) which would have made Bussyese, the great god of buses, very proud.

I thought this seemed pretty fair. This driver would get in trouble if people were riding on his bus without paying the full amount. But most of the people did not agree with him. In fact, nobody else did. They were shouting at him getting angry and just generally being rather rude, without being at all understanding. I thought it was quite sad really, that they were all so lacking empathy. Nobody even thanked him when they later got off the bus, so I made a point of giving some especially kind thanks.

Eventually three people got off the bus because of his demands. Which is odd. But it was quite an interesting situation to watch unfold and quite an unusual bus ride!

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Pokémon X and Pokémon Y

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Adam Randall

Pokemon XPokémon X and Pokémon Y were the first two Pokémon games for the 3DS and also the first main series game to be in 3D.

It’s very nice to see the world of Pokémon in 3D for the first time, but it’s essentially just a new art style that does nothing to effect the gameplay. There are one are two bits which really feel like full 3D, but the controls and camera don’t feel quite right and so I suppose it’s for the best that they mostly stuck to the usual play style.

Having said that, I don’t want to suggest that this is a bad game, or even that the 3D in this game is a detriment. It’s really good to see all of the Pokémon battles carried out with full 3D models for all Pokémon and the game’s many locations (especially the gyms) all look very good being laid out in proper 3D. On top of everything looking very nice, there’s also an especially good soundtrack which just helps to give the game a really good atmosphere.

As usual, this is a game where you start out as a lowly Pokémon trainer and set out to catch as many Pokémon as possible, train them up, beat the game’s eight gyms and then defeat the Elite Four. The additional story that surround this is a little deeper than usual and fairly emotional too, which was an aspect I was rather pleased with. Another new addition is that of Mega Evolution – now, for only limited periods, your fully evolved Pokémon can evolve one step further and become even stronger. Mega Evolutions tend to look pretty cool and they also add an interesting new angle to the game’s battles.

One thing which was quite noticeable to me was that things felt a lot easier this time around. There are multiple times when you’re just given strong Pokémon, you get given an EXP Share right at the start to make leveling up much faster and none of the gyms ever felt very hard. The EXP Share was a much appreciated time saver, but I wish I’d gotten a few more challenges from the end of the game. I’m not mentioning this as a bad thing (on the whole) but it’s definitely something I noticed.

Overall, this was a very enjoyable game. Some of my favourite new Pokémon introduced in this game include Greninja (a ninja frog), Klefki (a key ring), Xerneas (the legendary deer on the box of X) and Trevenant (an ancient tree spirit) and obviously there are many others which you also might like a lot. It may not be the best main series Pokémon game, but all main series Pokémon games are good!

Rating: 9.1/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Is Blogging a Conversation Killer?

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Adam Randall

I had an unusual experience when riding on the bus home and I thought to myself “This will make a good subject for today’s blog post!” but then after a few more moments’ thought, I realised it was a bad idea. Why? Well, what I wanted to write about was something I’d like to talk about at work. So, tomorrow, rather than having a fun chat with my co-worker about what happened, instead it would be like this:

“A funny thing happened to me after work yesterday,” I’d say.

“Haha, yeah. I read your blog post last night,” they’d reply and that, sadly, would be that.

There have been a few times in the past where I’ve been looking forward to chatting with somebody about something, but I’d have already written a blog post about it and they’d already have read it. As my blog posts invariably cover all of my thoughts and feelings about the subject, there’s no conversation to be had because the other person knows everything I might say. So then, what could have been a fun and engaging discussion, turns into nothing.

So sometimes, in answer to the question in this post title, blogging can be a conversation killer, but I think that can be avoided through strategic scheduling. Plus, there have been quite a few conversations, not to mention friendships, which have been formed through my blog. I’d certainly never say that blogging was a bad thing, but I did think that this was an unusual problem to face and so, like with everything else, I wanted to share it here.

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Public Arguments

Posted on July 2, 2016 by Adam Randall

When I see people having an argument in the streets, I try not to react to it. Obviously it’s quite an emotionally intense moment for them and openly altering your path and avoiding them will make them feel more conspicuous and potentially anxious. I hope that by behaving in a normal way, it will help to stop the situation feeling any worse (if only in a small way.)

So the other day, when I saw a man and a woman shouting at each other very angrily, I adopted my usual method. It was a very intense argument and they had even resorted to pushing each other physically. I didn’t want to alter my path, but due to the pushing, they were essentially right in front of me as I got to them.

The argument took a rather unexpected turn when the man started telling the woman that he thought she was ugly and that she looked like a man. I would think that if somebody has to resort to substance-less comments on somebody’s appearance, their argument is weak – but then, in defense, the woman then pulled down both her trousers and her underwear and shouted “Do I look like a man to you?” over and over, while continuing to push. At this point I was only a couple of meters away and beginning to regret my decision not to steer myself away – in the heat of the moment, perhaps she had forgotten that she was not in the privacy of her own home, meaning that my close proximity could have ultimately caused her to feel more uncomfortable.

All the while, I didn’t really know what to think: on the one hand the human body is nothing to be disgusted by, on the other this was sexual assault! But then again she was being shoved pretty hard… while shoving hard herself! Neither of them was really the ‘victim’ as they were both being pretty nasty to each other – meanwhile I just tried to continue my walk through town in as nonchalant a way as possible. A friend of mine later said that I am a magnet for terrible people; I wouldn’t say so myself but I hope that’s not the case!

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Kirby games:

Posted on July 1, 2016 by Adam Randall

Kirby logo1992: Kirby’s Dream Land
1992: Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins ¹
1993: Kirby’s Adventure
1995: Kirby’s Dream Land 2
1996: Kirby Super Star (Fun Pak)
1999: Super Smash Bros. ²
2001: Super Smash Bros. Melee ³
2008: Super Smash Bros. Brawl ⁴
2011: Puzzle Swap ⁵
2014: Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS ⁶
2015: Super Mario Maker ⁷

Connected Series:

Footnotes:

  1. Gordos appear as enemies, renamed Unibōs.
  2. Kirby is a playable character and there is a stage based on the series.
  3. Kirby is a playable character and there are multiple stages based on the series.
  4. Kirby, Meta Knight and King Dedede are playable and there are multiple stages based on the series.
  5. Kirby and other characters appear in several of the games puzzles.
  6. Kirby, Meta Knight and King Dedede are playable and there are multiple stages based on the series.
  7. Several characters from the series are playable via Mystery Mushroom.
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Kirby’s Dream Land 2

Posted on June 29, 2016 by Adam Randall

Kirby's Dream Land 2This was Kirby’s second main game on the Game Boy and I think it did a really good job of refining the formula established in Kirby’s Dream Land and Kirby’s Adventure.

Once again, King Dedede is causing trouble for Dream Land and has broken the connection between the seven Rainbow Islands. This time, however, Dedede is not quite to blame as he has been possessed by an evil force known only as Dark Matter…

Kirby has to get through several levels on each island in his quest to restore the balance. Not only is he helped by his ability to inhale enemies and absorb their power, but also by three animal friends: Rick the hamster, Kine the fish and Coo the owl. All of these animals have each of their own abilities and each of them respond differently to Kirby having absorbed different powers, which helps to add some good variation to the gameplay. My favourite was probably Kine, because I love how Kirby goes inside his mouth and he flops around on dry land.

The levels are all quite fun and the music is nice and catchy. It’s a pleasant game and always enjoyable to play. The levels are never too hard, but it’s not without its challenges. The hardest things to do is probably to collect all of the “Rainbow Drops” (there’s one hidden in each world) and this is something which is definitely worth doing, as you get a good reward for it. Thankfully, unlike the first Dream Land game, you can also save your data now.

I like this more than the earlier two Kirby games and think of it as one of the best side scrolling games on the original Game Boy. Rating: 8.1/10

Buy it here.

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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Quality Over Quantity in Blogging

Posted on June 27, 2016 by Adam Randall

With almost any kind of art, the rule ‘quality over quantity’ makes perfect sense, but blogging is the only thing that potentially goes against it. If you want to do well in the world of internet content, people will expect you to stick to a regular update schedule – not only that, but search engine algorithms will expect that of you too. If algorithms can see that new content is regularly added to a site, they’re more likely to have it rank highly for searches – doubtlessly this often causes bloggers to write something even when they don’t have an especially good blog post idea. This is part of the reason I’ve stuck to my schedule of at least three posts a week for the past five years, but also because I find it quite rewarding. Occasionally, I’ll have no blog post in mind and then pleasantly surprise myself with what I come up with. Other times, like today, I’ll come up with a blog post idea which isn’t really amazing, but which I like to believe has enough substance to be worth writing. In my case, writing so regularly helps me to collect my thoughts and record things I would have otherwise forgotten.

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EU Referendum

Posted on June 25, 2016 by Adam Randall

I’m sorry about my delay in writing this blog post – obviously I usually write a blog post every Friday, but I completely forgot (I did actually remember at about 3 a.m. but since I was in bed, I decided to leave it) and I think the reason I forgot is because I was so shocked at the result of the EU Referendum. I guess in a way, I kind of expected it to happen, but I was still very shocked to see it become a reality and even now I am still hoping that something can be done to reverse the decision. Perhaps I am in denial?

Now, personally, I think that leaving the EU is a very bad thing indeed, but on a slightly different subject, I am worried by how easily people can be swayed towards specific points of view (and votes) through lies and misrepresentation of facts – the perpetrators of such lies are then not held to any accountability. It’s frightening to consider the kinds of things which people could be persuaded of in future. A lot of it hinges, I think, on the fact that a large portion of the population don’t really apply critical thinking to the information they consume (which I have written about before.)

A big part of the debate has been that the EU is an undemocratic institution (which is already a dubious claim) and I began to wonder whether you can ever have democracy when the electorate don’t have all the facts and don’t fully understand what they’re voting for. I think the answer is no. I began to wonder how something like this could be combated in a world where our media and politicians share misinformation so consistently and I came up with a rough idea.

Perhaps there could be a simple “true or false” questions that somebody needs to answer before voting in something. Obviously, these would all have to be objective facts and not skewed in any way. If somebody was completely uninformed and couldn’t answer them, would they really be in a position to vote? I mean, people don’t make decisions in their personal life if they don’t know the facts. Why should it be any different for politics? Knowing that they would have to answer a mini test before voting might encourage people to research more thoroughly before voting – if a large percentage of people failed these tests, the voting turnout may be low once but it might prompt a public outcry for reliable news sources.

Obviously, there are issues with this approach: they’d need to ensure that people who are less able in different ways were given adequate facilities to provide their answers and that every eligible voter could easily and conveniently complete this quiz. I feel bad to suggest it, almost as if it’s somehow elitist, but it feels like this would be an important safety procedure to ensure that people do not vote for things because they have been manipulated to do so. I hope one day, we’ll see an end to lying politicians and unreliable newspapers.

(Don’t miss the latest Finger Puppet Show!)

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Slender: The Arrival

Posted on June 22, 2016 by Adam Randall

Slender The ArrivalSlender: The Eight Pages was a fantastic game, but since it was free, it wasn’t a very big game. Slender: The Arrival is a sequel which builds upon the original in every way (although, unlike its prequel, it is not free.)

The game follows several different characters who are investigating strange goings on in a small mining town. At first you’re exploring the house of a woman who disappeared and you go on from there into the nearby woods. You end up exploring all kinds of different places, like the mountains and the mine itself and all of them are very eerie locations. The whole time you have the persistent risk supernatural horrors lurking in the shadows. Many of the locations are very beautiful too, calming even, which perhaps makes the horrific things that happen even more potent.

Like the previous game, everything you see and do is through the perspective of “found footage” which helps to make the whole experience much more real and immersive. Many of the game’s locations are really dark too and all you have to light your way is your torch – the limited visibility ends up making things even more tense.

One thing I’ve not really drawn enough attention to is how frightening this game is. I’ve honestly never consumed a piece of media which frightened me more – and I love that! The combination of the cryptic story, the perfect sound direction and horrifying surprises help to create an amazing piece of horror fiction. There’s a particular scene in a church which I found especially scary, but obviously I don’t want to spoil it.

You might think that you shouldn’t play this game without first playing Slender: The Eight Pages, but actually there’s a segment of the game which is essentially a remake of it and since everything in this game is better than its predecessor, you’re not missing out on anything by jumping straight in with this one. As it’s quite cheap and a really great game, you should download it next time you’re looking for a new game. The only downside is that, while longer than the first Slender game, it still felt too short.

Rating: 9/10

(Don’t miss today’s Finger Puppet Show!)

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