薔薇語

If you want ideas for what HERO mechanic martial arts would be good, then "all of them" seems like the right answer. If you want ideas for real world martial arts that could be used as the basis for your character's MA, the "most of them" would seem to be a good answer. That is to say that ultimately you are going to be adding on your own flair to things so the exact basis for it is going to be completely up in the air. To expand on that point, here are a few examples using various real world martial arts: Boxing: You have a big and buff Boxer who packs a punch even Mike Tyson would be scared of. But all of a sudden you have to worry about him disappearing and re-appearing on your blind spot. He is going to have massive OCV bonus and pack a heck of a punch because his target can't always be ready. Wrestler: You have another super massive man who could rip a man's arm off if given the chance. And now that he can just teleport into position he can initialize the kinds of grabs and locks that the world's best MMA fighters can only dream of. Monkey Style Kung Fu (or other gymnasticy Kung Fu): Start with a little guy with lots of speed and awareness who excels on jumping in and grabbing a quick punch or two and then leaping out and give him teleportation. Now he can take it to the next level and fake every angle of attack. Leap forward for a drop kick yet manage to land it from behind if the target overly preps to take the initial hit. Iron palm Karate: You have a guy who has been trained to hit hard at all times. Now give him the ability to not only hit hard but to teleport his arm a few inches when people move their arms in for the block. He becomes unblockable while always delivering an extreme hit. Aside from all of those, of course, are all the various "in no way related to the real world" techniques that you would have access to. Being able to teleport someone against their will so that they always land prone on the ground (a throw attack in essence) is amazing. The ability to disarm someone by just touching their weapon is equally cool. The ability to just teleport away parts of someone's flesh or slightly phase them in and out is also great. There is very little limit to what is possible; only on what you and the GM will allow. La Rose.

Since the author is a guy, are we allowed to call him crazy? Because he is making some stupid claims. First and foremost, saying that one male singer wasn't call crazy while some female singer was is hardly a point at all. And more so since the male singer was called "incoherent, obsessed, and creepy"; three words that can be summed up into "crazy" quite easily. So his argument is that we are more verbose when we call men crazy? Next, I don't know how this guy has been using the word crazy to describe people, but it is telling that he seems to think it is always used as a "She was upset and I didn't want her to be" catchphrase. That is a stupid and asinine comment. I don't think I have ever heard it used in that manner by anyone - male or female. Have I just been living the feminist dream and didn't know it? In general, I would think that the rather basic definition of "this doesn't make sense. This is unreasonable" fairly capture the meaning of the word. If someone is doing something without reason or is doing something for some bizarre or incomprehensible reason, then they are doing something crazy. It is not a "I don't want to deal with you" alternative. As a final note, all this "ban X word" stuff is terribly ill-thought and pointless. La Rose.

As a point of clarification the StarCraft tournaments are not segregated. Men and women play openly against each other in every international league I know of. La Rose

The Bechdel Test was brought up earlier this year by the movie reviewer at the Escapist in this "The Big Picture" video. To summarize Movie Bob on this: The bechdel test tells you nothing of value about any given movie. As mentioned above, Star Wars: A New Hope does not pass the test. Yet I would like to think that most of us can agree that it was a great movie. Indeed, passing or failing the test is unrelated to any given movie's quality. Thus using it as a measure on individual films is rather out of place. Conversely, movies that do a lot more for female characters and display them in positive and well rounded ways does not even begin to guarantee a pass rating on the Bechdel test. My favorite movie of last year was Pacific Rim. The female lead was great: the actress and the role. She was as well rounded and thought out as her male counterparts. But despite that, Pacific Rim most certainly does not pass the test. That said, the fact that so few movies do pass IS a point of interest. When taken on a whole it is worth noting that so few movies pass because it serves as possible evidence towards the bias of the stories that are put out by Hollywood. But is that actually news to anyone? I would imagine not, and thus linking so strongly to the test is just like beating a dead horse: pointless. La Rose.

On whole I like the article. I think that the trope of abused woman ergo motivation is tired and uninspired. I do not like the quote you have, though. I think the article did a fairly good job, especially nearing the end of expressing that things are not as black and white as they might otherwise be portrayed, but that quote is doing quite the opposite. Why do I say that? First and foremost, post-facto narrative interpretations are fine when limited to the realm of pure opinion but the veracity to which certain people establish their beliefs as facts based largely on their personal interpretation of the quite speculative meaning behind something is disheartening. How does that come into play here? When we look at the comic books and games that inspire these kinds of stances (abuse of women) we are capable of bringing forward personal interpretation of what they mean. But because they are our personal interpretations they will always be colored by our own established biases. Thus a more feminist individual is naturally going to read into the narrative an abhorrent view of women. And I can understand why. But while I understand that view, I think it is wrong to think that that view is the only correct or legit way to view it and that doing so blinds oneself from being able to understand what other messages could be read into it (and I do mean "read into" and not just "understood"). To give an example to illustrate this: why aren't men portrayed more often as the victims of abuse and thus the motivation for other female or male characters? Is it because such a state is unmanly and thus not portrayed (a more feminist view) or is it because male victimhood is unimportant and non-inspiring -male disposablity- (a more MRM view). Is it the message of Super Mario that women are weak and need saving by strong men OR is it that women are precious, so precious that men are expected to throw everything away (including their lives) at the drop of a hat for just a single woman? Now, I am not trying to say that either view from above is right; quite the opposite. I am trying to say that both stances require the viewer to create their own views and those views are going to be highly biased. Thus analysis that ever references them is going to be inherently weakened by that bias. Any attempts to claim a non-biased analysis of a source material is going to find itself fighting one hell of an up hill battle to somehow claim objective understanding of a vague concept that was probably given little to no-thought by a team of random individuals. Again, I liked the article. I think they do capture an important point: the female victimhood (especially as perpetrated by exclusively male characters) is an old and tired trope. It is kind of like watching a sports movie. We all know the plot before we ever see it (Underdog team gets a new McGuffin. They play their heart out, are on the precipice of losing it all due to "unforeseen twist X" but narrowly pull out the win). It doesn't mean it is a bad plot or that movies using it are inherently bad movies. Just that after you have seen that play out a few dozen times, you start wanting something new. That is how I feel about the issue. My only gripe with the article is summed up with the above quoted line that speaks to a mindset behind the analysis. La Rose.

Seems like it is a great time to lay back and relax for a bit with an island medley version of a classic. La Rose.

Hyper critical and useless much? The first point is awkward. "Blizzard isn't actively trying to be a role model for social change! How dare they!" - That is an awful criticism. Likewise, Blizzards comments weren't "We are going to actively oppress people for X reason" just "Hey, we aren't the pope. We shouldn't be looked to as paragons of righteousness". And guess what, they aren't and shouldn't be looked to for that. As to the second point "Blizzard didn't use my buzzword! How F*ing dare they not!" (buzzword = inclusive). And why must Geek be labeled "inclusive"? Don't get me wrong but I think that entire list prior to the non-mentioned buzz word is "exclusive" by nature. You don't start describing a group and enumerating distinctive (exclusive) characteristics only to end up saying that everyone is part of it. That is nonsensical. It would seem that the complaint is not that blizzard is non-inclusive, rather that they aren't acting as extreme paragons of the author's moral ideals. And because they didn't explicitly mention "we want X-minority group to play" they must be the devil. That hearkens back to the first point and is hyper-critical and generally useless. As to the third point about toxicity in the WoW community, I get. That seems like a fair and good point. If people are finding it hard to communicate with each other or turned off because of other users, then Blizzard ought to find ways to help ease the communication between its users. That has nothing to do with being upstanding moral actors, just with being what they actually are: a business. Keeping customers happy is part of the portfolio - at least if they intend on staying in business. And that isn't limited to being "inclusive" as the inappropriate language and such is not limited to any particular special groups. It is an everyone (actually inclusive as oppose to the article's usage) issue. The next iterated point (although it was laced throughout) was about two top people in Blizzard. Since I know nothing about them specifically, I can't really comment on them. Perhaps they are as bad as the author would seem to indicate but I don't know. But I do know that the melodrama in which the author decides to end the passage would fit along with almost any teenager who says not being able to do X will just kill them! Perhaps a more tone down and in tuned with reality approach would help. La Rose.

This seems relevant to this thread. The Game Theorist discusses drag and the larger plethora of alternate sexuality in games. La Rose.

I never knew any of that about LoL. I have never played it nor been interested in it but I do hear about it quite often from other sources. Good for them. I hope it keeps working well for them. La Rose.

Thanks for telling me how to do that! Now everyone, lets enjoy some 千本桜(1,000 Cherry blossoms) by 和楽器バンド (Japanese instruments band). La Rose.

Are you happy? http://24hoursofhappy.com La Rose. PS - Under the old system we could insert links that were embedded into normal text. For example, I use to be able to write something like "And the study can be found here. And the "here" would actually be a link to a different website. Is that still possible? The syntax for the boards seems to have changed so my old input method doesn't work. Same is also true for video links. I can create them and have them show up as a playable screen but I used to be able to title them and such but can't do so now. How does one do so now?

La Rose.

Vondy: Yes, it does seem to be largely about dropping links. While I read some of the links dropped, a large number of them seem to be re-hashes of extremely similar accounts. As such, I haven't felt the need to comment. Likewise, being a white male I feel like my opinions on such topics are usually unwanted, so it is best for me to bow out. But maybe that is just me. --- As to the most recent link about male gamer privilege: I think one of my biggest concerns with such enumerations of "male privilege" is that such "analysis" tends to be trying to push a view without examining it in context and ignoring any parallels. Without trying to combat the whole list of 25 items, let me pick off a few: Number one talks about how males can ignore female problems - It ignores the fact that women can do the same (disregarding other women). It also inadvertently would seem to indicate that men don't face issues in the gaming sphere; rather that only women suffer from adversity. Number three finely tunes itself to "sexual harassment" as a way to ignore the fact that men, no more than women, can post information. The likelihood of actually suffering from harassment or violence is likely equally high for both genders. And if real life does have a barring on this sphere, realistically men are at far greater risk of violence and harassment than women. Just not of a "sexual" nature. That will predominantly be women who are affected. Such selective exclusion draws my ire. Number four slaps in the "because of my gender" at the end. That may indeed be the case. I would doubt a guy is required to "prove his gamer cred" because he is a guy. But it assumes that men don't have to "prove their gamer cred" at all. Given the way some like to limit the title "gamer", I know many men who, while being enjoyers of games, would not label themselves as gamers because the "gamer community" questions their cred because they like more "casual" games. All that is to say that this point focuses solely on female exclusive problems (not bad) in such a way as to imply a lack of a male counterpart (not good). Number nine mentions that individual women are seen as ambassadors and representative of their whole gender. Thus when they do something wrong, the larger community holds all women accountable. But this seems to be a bit one sided. It think that such "group think" is not exclusive to men. After all, how many women have we known who go through a bad break up and then pronounce to the world "all men are scum" (or some variant there of)? I was just talking with one last night. Both men and women do this and are the victims of this sort of behavior. Number fourteen talks about how games are "specifically designed to cater to [the male] demographic." While I think it would be hard to argue this on the macro level, it is absurd on the micro level. A Japanese publisher of J.RPGs isn't targeting my (The Rose's) demographic. It is targeting young Japanese people. Indeed, most games are going to be targeting more specific demos than just "male". It is like saying HERO targets the male demographic - while perhaps true, it doesn't capture reality in the most accurate fashion as there is a plethora of other factors involved other than "male". All in all, I think that there are unique issues women face in the gaming sector (and in life in general) but that the way people talk about such things is generally inaccurate, pushy, and/or possibly dishonest far too often. La Rose.

As to the pay gap I know that there many studies that claim to have determined actual gaps and all of them seem to be conflict with each other. But the general labor statistics that just calculate total median pay for men and women for all full time workers is what generates the 81% value. That value would obviously be the maximum general gap as it takes raw numbers without any consideration to hours, type, years in work force, or any other considerations. Given that, I think it would be reasonable to assume that the wage gap is going to be a good deal less than 19% when comparing apples to apples. But in general I am always weary of quoted statistics. One person may generate some excellent data that is useful. But by the time it has reach mass awareness it has undergone the telephone game treatment and is no longer anything like the original data. As they say, there are lies, damned lies, and then statistics. La Rose.

Wa-wa-what! No love for RTS or Grand Stategy Games? What about straight up fighters? As it is now, I don't play many games. When I do, though, it is something like Civ5, StartCraft II, or fighting games like Smash Bros or Tekken. La Rose.

Yeah. Besides, we all know 3rd person shooters are the thinking man's game. ^^ La Rose.

Japanese pop idol group Nogizaka46 (similar to AKB48) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QburF0JkORY&list=WLFSHAyJWYxKSsy-XQ0aKUfwa5BVQBFMrd La Rose.

I'm with Sociotard on this. While I have never played anymore than a few versus matches of Halo (FPS aren't my thing), I have watched the full story arch for the newest in the franchise. And just like Sociotard mentioned, Master Chief doesn't comment on much of anything. And while he doesn't comment much, you can certainly gleam from his actions / reactions and the few comments he does make, that he feels fear, worries about abandonment, and strives to better the situation the best way he knows how given his resources. And while lacing messages into games is nice, at the end of the day games are a means to escape the tedium or harshness of reality. Why play a character who needs to go to counseling when you can play a character that takes control of their environment? Lastly, while I agree that having more positive and expressive male characters is better, I don't think it is fair to claim that there is really that big of a lack. I have played a number of games where leading male characters showed at least some emotional side and how that helped drive the plot. It strikes me that, at least for boys and men, there are bigger fish to fry in the gaming sphere than simple emotional openness of male characters. La Rose.

Here is a beautiful cover of Taylor Swift's "We are never ever getting back together" in Japanese. La Rose.

千本桜　1,000 cherry blossoms The anime depicted is 刀語 - Katana Katari - Sword Story La Rose.

Squirrels are one of the things I miss the most about the US. They were every where on at my University and I haven't seen any since I left. They are so adorable, though! La Rose.

In honor of the newly released debut album: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x-87-bEUYog&list=WL133A41DB1BF75D51 La Rose.

I fear that you and I may have had a misunderstanding. I do not think that her "taking a while..." or "saying she doesn't like video games" as being "an offense equal to... threats, insults". I do think such behavior is bad (saddening was my initial choice of words). But I am not surprised by such behavior on the net. Most anyone who gets any attention will also get bad attention. Now, I don't know if you meant to imply I thought otherwise, but I thought it best to clear that up. La Rose.

Well among the things I have heard about her: Extreme delay in her video series(understandable-ish) Stolen and unaccredited game play footage from other youtubers (not understandable and extremely stupid - also a great way to not spend any of that money she pulled in) There is a video of her explaining that she doesn't like video games at all - a claim that is in direct contradiction with her video series. I feel like I have heard more but I honestly didn't keep up with the issue. In general, I found her arguments to be pointless and ill-thought out. If she did receive threats, that is saddening but not unexpected of people on the net. As to MRAs; The only ones I know are ones I have seen on youtube and such. Most of the time they are polite and cordial. None of the ones I have listened to have been dismissive of rape - but I have heard a number of issues brought up about how the entire issue is perceived and criminal cases are conducted. La Rose.

Just watched the most recent Episode of Naruto which fed my passion to finally look up the newest opening theme (月の大きさ - Size of the Moon) and the newest ending theme (ブラックナイトタウン- Black Night Town). Both are great. Original Music video for 月の大きさ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9LKrDAPiy1Q Original Music video for ブラックナイトタウン (I can't find the full version on youtube). http://gyao.yahoo.co.jp/player/00100/v10345/v0993900000000546703/ La Rose.