The future console generation will destroy the future gamer market

OMG, a post NOT about radfem ;3. Of course, it is about video games, which I have talked about recently.

As you may or may not know, rumor has it that the successor to the 360 (720?) will be digital media only. More recent rumors speculate the the PS4 (or “orbis”) will have a similar imposing anti-used games measure. I’ll not repeat myself with what I said last time about this. Short version, it was inevitable, but Gamestop’s actions pushed this forward by several decades.

While this debate is a complicated one, this approach is only going to hurt them in the end. By taking away the ability to buy games used, trade games, and share them; they are grossly limiting their future markets. I don’t know if this holds true for kids today, but when I was a kid, I had very limited disposable income. The price of a game was about half a year’s worth of an allowance. It was through the ability to rent games, trade them, and share them with my friends that I could experience a vast majority of what games had to offer. The kids who would do that now will be people like me in 20 years, the next generation’s serious gamers. These are the people who will never abandon the hobby, support the medium when everyone else stands against it, and in some cases, fulfill the dream of “giving back” by becoming involved in the industry someday. I’ll admit I am biased, but this is probably the most enduring and invested market that the industry currently has. By cutting off the ability to see a wider variety of games by ensuring that nobody can share them, you are leaving that market to wither on the vine and die.

Sidenote: If this strategy gets expanded to all the media in the world (and all non-digital media is abandoned), libraries will be unable to function. Their entire purpose as an archive of knowledge IS to share it. Of course, IIRC, the American Authors Association is switching to e-books because they hate the lost sales that libraries give. If the concept of a library didn’t exist, and somebody proposed it, they would be shut down as promoting an agenda of IP piracy and communism.

Another thing is, how will people transfer games to other people. One dev talked about contracts of temporary transferrals of ownership through signed agreements. Thing is, that won’t work in the US for one reason. It is illegal to have minors be legally bound to contracts. If ownership of games becomes contingent on contracts (which it pretty much implicitly is with clickwrap licenses), then it will be literally impossible for people under 18 to buy games with their own money on their own initiative without parental oversight. While some would see this as an ideal scenario, I can tell you as someone who deeply loved games and who was fiercely individualistic, taking away the right to spend my money on what I wanted on my own initiative without having to go through my folks would have made me bitterly resentful that even my game system thinks I don’t have the right to make my own choices.

So basically, the next time someone says “will someone please think of the children”, I will point out that the industry has made their position clear. Children are collateral damage in the war against their own consumers. Also, if we expand that thought a bit (since the various politicians wanting to score the “scare the parents” vote of the world are always railing about how games affect impressionable kids), what are these things teaching the kids of tomorrow. The 2 lessons I see are “you have no right to make your own decisions until you reach the age of majority” and “sharing is stealing.”

I’d end it here, but since I’m still coming down off of my rant against radfem, I have just enough vitriol to power a bit more ranting. And since I finally found that link I was looking for about the PS4 rumors, I’ll dominate and destroy them here.

Here are some of the rumors and how likely I think they are to be real

1. No backwards compatability
-Likleyhood: Medium
-Reason: Backwards compatibility was what gave the PS2 a significant edge over the other next-gen systems early on. I and others like me have WENT OUT OF OUR WAY to get a 60 Gig PS3 for the purposes of true backward compatibility. That being said, I am sure the chipset is expensive (cell processing in particular). Also, in order to encourage the PSN model, a forced cutoff would be required. It is shown people will re-buy their games (even though that is a false interpretation of the data). It would, in the words of a good friend of mine “piss me off mightily”, since while I have many consoles, it brings me great joy that my modern consoles can play the games of their disc-based predecessors.

2. A system of blocking used games with a chargeback model
-Likelyhood: Almost certain
-Reason: Used games have been a major complaint since the PS2 era (when Gamestop crushed EB and now has a virtual monopoly as the only serious international bricks and mortar game store). The idea of a chargeback mechanism is hardly new. Also, as I learned this semester, in the business world, it is considered an acceptable practice to do that to ones employees to curtail inefficiency. My contact at Aker Solutions said that his boss (whom is also involved in our project as an overseer) is charging him for EVERYTHING. Want a new notepad (the small paper kind), I think that’s about ~100 NOK (~20 USD, an average cost in Norway). While to customers it seems like they are effectively being punished and screwed over for getting a better deal on a game (and they pretty much are), it is seen as an acceptable (if dickish) business practice.

3. Always connected to PSN
-Likelyhood: Very high (Not as much as the previous one though)
-Reason: It is shown that one means of deterring piracy is forced on line content. This way they can monitor your PS4 at any given time to see if anything is out of the ordinary. That was the DRM of one of the biggest selling PC games of all time (Starcraft 2). One of the reasons the market switched so heavily to consoles is because of the customizability and internal knowledge of PCs was far greater then that of consoles, and expectation based on history is going to keep it that way (although MS seems to be not caring and overturning about those expectations with Windows 8). The current generation has been really loving the net-subscription model. If they can make their consoles an extension of that, they can ensure no illegal activity is going on. Of course, that leaves people who can’t afford decent net connections out in the cold (like me in my dorm, because of how stupid things were). It reminds me of that one marketeer. “We used to target people who made 100K a year, but now if you make under 250K, you’re not worth it to us.” Same is being said about the income gap for a stable Internet connection for each console.

4. Run of the mill processor and GPU
-Likelyhood: Very low
-Reason: One of Sony’s strengths is that it built all of its own hardware in house with the METRIC SHIT TON of corporations it owns. This is also what allows it to achieve backward compatibility so easily. Plus my experience with my laptop shows that AMD processors get overloaded very easily. Also, a generic processor would make the system more exploitable by those who know its secrets. In house development protects from that.

5. Stupid name XD
-Likelyhood: Higher then I would wish
-Reason: Console names have been downsliding since the days of PS1 (it was mostly Nintendo until recently). NES = SNES > N64 = Gamecube >>>>>>>> Wii > Wii2. Genesis ~ Saturn ~ Dreamcast. PS1 = PS2 = PS3. Xbox ~ Xbox360. GameBoy = GameBoy Color = GameBoy Advance ~ DS = DSLite = DSi ~ 3DS. PSP > PS VITA.

As you can see, it was almost universally Nintendo, but Sony has joined in this crappy naming convention.

Also, it seems that names almost always get worse then their project codes too.

Project Reality = Ultra 64 > Nintendo 64 (not bad, just generic and less then the sum of its parts). Dolphin ~ Gamecube (it’s like they try to be more bland). Atlantis ~ Game Boy Advance (this one I don’t mind so much). Revolution >>>>>>> Wii (It took me 2 years to tolerate that name enough to say it). Wii 2 > Wii U (I wanted it to stay Wii 2 so it could be “Wii ni” in Japan XD). I don’t know what the development name of the PSP’s successor was, but I am willing to bet it was probably better then VITA (that sounds like a kind of cheese).

Well, that was fun. While these rumors might not be true (if I were MS or Sony, I would deliberately leak these rumors to “do a temperature check using a strawman” or whatever the business speak terms are), they are believable all the same. We shall see in the end. I’ve said this before and I’ll say it now. If even one of the major consoles of the next generation (non Nintendo’s, they are a generation behind in hardware trends) stops using disc based media in favor of a purely digital platform, disables or blocks used games (as well as borrowing, renting, etc), or requires a constant net connection to work at all, I just want to say I fucking called it!

A lot I want to say about the video game industry over the past month (but never had the time)

It’s time to crawl out of my busy little busy spot and treat myself to some babbling as a way to reward myself for my personal vigilance. While I haven’t been gaming much (see the “busy spot” thing, plus my nerd-urge has been to watch all of Death Note again lately), it will now and always remain close to my heart. That being said, for all the joy the hobby gives me, this is going to be a somewhat painful entry, because the things I have read about/witnessed/etc aren’t pretty. With that in mind, I’m going to hit the worst of it first to get it out of the way.

For those who don’t know, there was a fighting game reality show called “Cross Assault” that took several pro fightmans players in order to promote Street Fighter X Tekken. I could talk about how that game was a trainwreck from the get-go, or how Capcom shot themselves in the foot when the added certain elements to it that took away from whatever appeal the older beta had, but that’s not what I am going at here. On this show there was one female player whose fighting name was “Super-Yan.” She faced constant sexual harassment the whole time, to the point where she threw her last match because the environment was too toxic. Furthermore, in a later interview, a prominent member of said community (a player who goes by the fighting name “Aris” I think) said in an interview that sexual harassment is integral to the fighting game community (to which I call bullshit).

I’m not going to go into my usual level of detail and emotional ranting, since several people have covered this better then I ever could. However, since I am unable to pass this kind of thing up without saying a few things, here I go.

When I was watching EVO last year and Kayo Police was playing, the shit that came up on the chat stream was…sickeningly sexist to say the least. I enjoyed the match (she’s a decent C.Viper player, a character that I feel needs more love), but this shit completely ruined that for me. When word got out that she’s a trans woman…it was bigotry squared over there. I got so mad I ended up rage-quitting that livestream to find one where I couldn’t see the chat-window. The comments were THAT bad.

Ironically, some of the counter-example comments have said “we’re not bigiots, we tolerate Kayo Police.” First of all, tolerate implies that they don’t -want- her there, but they put up with her; however that’s beisdes the point. Even if we ignore their poorly used words and take it to mean that they accept her as a fully fledged member of the community and equal to the other players (not taking into account individual differences like skill level), then sorry to say but they are wrong. When she isn’t being sexually harassed and spat on for being trans, she is treated like a goddamn fetish object. Googling her name, the first thing that comes up are remarks about how hot she is (I’m not going to duplicate them here, given they often have that anti-trans bigotry and homophobia embeded inside of them). Now, I can definitely see why people would think she’s hot (she’s a model FFS). That being said, she is fetish-eyecandy first and a player second in the eyes of far too many folks in said community. This is not acceptance of her as a player, it is “tolerance on the condition that you are hot and famous.” Despite that she is skilled enough to play on the tournament level, she is still delegated to the status of eye-candy. I have heard murmurs that in the game journalism world, a similar kind of prejudice is hurled at female game journalists by the community as a whole. It’s either, “you got your job on your back, because women don’t know games” or just a banal case of “lolfat.” Either way, it pisses the shit out of me. However, I digress.

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Whew, got that one out of the way. Well, in my tradition (that I just started now and may not continue next entry) of getting the worst out of the way earliest on, guess I’ll go to the second saddest and most painful thing I have to say.

Looking at the Video Game industry always has been making me feel like a doomsday prophet for a couple of years now, and it’s getting worse as time goes on. Japan has largely abandoned the US market as their marketing realities have considerably diverged during this console generation. Combine this with some truly stupid decisions on Nintendo’s part (region locking handhelds, having their latest console have only one controller, etc). Also, rumors are surfacing that Microsoft’s latest system won’t have any physical hardware for games at all, and I have no doubt Sony will follow suit (supposedly, the PS3 is already entirely digital in Europe). I have nothing against games in a purely digital format, but there are certain issues that need to be solved before I can fully commit to that model. Also, it’s obvious why the industry is racing blindly toward this option. They want to find a way to make used games a thing of the past.

Frankly, this was inevitable, but gamestop’s dickery (since they have cornered the market as the only major game retailer) has pushed this outcome forward several decades. While only a few game companies are willing to say out loud that used games are worse then software piracy, the fact that they are rushing this intensely toward digital media, which is significantly more vulnerable to precisely that, shows that either they feel secure in their online watchdog protocols (falsely so IMO), or that they feel that used games are such a threat it’s worth this risk despite how hard the industry loses its collective shit over said piracy. I can definitely understand WHY they are so freaked out over it, but I feel like it’s punishing consumers for what Gamestop did. I guess since gamestop is too powerful and essential for them right now, they want to change that (it’s probably partly about that too). I’m curious if one web service per system being the sole supplier of games would constitute a monopoly in sales venues (it technically would be). However, I digress.

At any rate, with the Japanese largely abandoning the US market (compounded with some TRULY STUPID decisions, not all of which I mentioned above), and a shift that can be described as EA put it “from a packaged goods model to a services model,” I really don’t like where the game industry is going. Honestly, I don’t mind a “services model” if it’s done the way STEAM or Netflix does it. However, part of that is contingent on access to an entire library for a subscription fee, or the ability to purchase a hard copy if one should want to (basically, you can buy something and your ability to use it won’t shut down with a halting of subscription payments, plus I think STEAM is free. Not sure though, as I don’t have a PC worthy of gaming). However, the “subscription plus game payment, both are required in order to use your console at all…that you already paid for” is not the way to go. However, one thing console devs aren’t is smart in terms of how to find a compromise between them and their customers. This past generation in particular made it crystal clear that the relationship between console devs any anything they don’t control (game devs, retailers, customers, journalists, etc) is getting increasingly strained and antagonistic, despite the fact that every one of them is absolutely crucial for the console dev’s success. This antagonistic relationship has become largely bilateral (depending on the companies) and it seems to go down a “chain.” Console devs are at the top, customers are at the bottom, and shit rolls downhill. Some of the antagonism is as a reaction to knowing how they are treated by those above. It’s a vicious cycle. However, I digress.

My point is that for those and several other reasons, I really don’t like where the game industry is going. The markets have become divided, the key relationships that keep it moving are becoming more and more strained, and there is a paradigm shift largely motivated by greed of -forcing- consumers to play along, rather then giving them what they want. It’s only a small leap to go to an on live model where people need to pay a subscription fee just to make their console function at all. If they can get away with that, then it won’t be long before all the IP industry follows suit and any physical format will be obsolete and considered tools of software pirates. It’s ironic, an industry I love so much is forcing forth a dystopic vision of the future that I would deeply resent. It’s like I said, I feel like a doomsday prophet.

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The last thing will be something I don’t have any emotional grumblies over. A few Nintendo games have taken the option of literally beating a level for you if you don’t want to do it. I was taken aback at first. I come from a generation where games were generally (but not always) harder then they seem to be today. Maybe it’s nostalgia, or maybe it’s just this kind of “darn kids, they don’t earn their endings”, but part of me longs for that experience again. Some games, such as the last 2 megaman games (and they are the last ones, since Inafune jumped ship on Capcom) delivered that.

However, that being said, I understand the other side well too. While I am not the most fond of the folks from Penny Arcade, one of them did have a good argument about this. Despite what EULA stupidity says about games, I still view the individual game as property of the person who bought it (or paid for a license for it, whatever). So long as it isn’t being done in a way that breaks any laws, there is no reason why someone couldn’t use their game as a glorified movie if they wanted to. Not everybody has the time (especially nowadays) or investment in the medium to really power through it like I and those like me do (although I would argue I definitely don’t have the time, but I digress).

This leaves me conflicted on several levels. On the one hand, people can experience games how they want. One of the beauties of the medium is that it can deliver different things to different people and still make for an awesome overall experience. On the other hand, a truly well designed game contributes to its story and setting with everything it does (even if that story and setting is the old contra archetype of “aliens come, kill them all”, which there is nothing wrong with). To deny that part of the experience is cheating yourself of some of the more tacit elements that make the setting what it was. The kind of weapon someone uses, the way they move, those are all characterization elements. What enemies appear where, how they attack, how tough they are to kill. Those are all elements of setting and possibly story. Dozens of other things like that persist to contribute to a games story/setting/etc that people might not be aware of.

Apart from that, I was taken initially against the idea on a personal level. With the game beating itself for someone, or they not having to experience the difficult of killing boss X, they didn’t “earn” their victory. That which I and others like me have clawed so hard to get is being given to those who surrender to the challenge. It takes away from the significance of it.

Then one very critical reminder popped into my mind. Wouldn’t this be extremely similar to the cheat codes that Doom made popular back in the 90s. Hell, even prior to that, things like stage select codes, hidden continue codes, etc. used to be prevalent in games. The most famous and multi-purpose code was the contra code after all (although since it is so intrinsically attached to the game’s identity, there is a philosophical question whether using it is “really” cheating). I didn’t have a problem with that in the slightest. While they have all but disappeared on consoles (as have cheat devices like gameshark), I considered them a way to expand the game, not take away from it.

So basically I’m for it on one condition. That it be made clear that player X didn’t “legally” accomplish what they said they did in terms of beating levels and all that. If they want to cheat, skip to the next whatever, then more power to them. However, it should be clear that they did exactly that. The cheat mode in Civ 2 was literally just a menu that you activated. You could do whatever it allowed but it would claim you cheated on your civ score. That’s completely fine.

There is a lot more to the issue of making games more accessible while simultaneously keeping their core audience engaged then that. Some games appeal IS their immense challenge (Demons’ Souls comes to mind). Another issue are things like options for people who don’t want to watch cut-scenes, while not taking away the story they convey (one solution I liked is storing a narrative summary for the player to access for later, with the option to re-watch if desired, so they don’t feel they “have” to watch it). There’s a lot of things to explore, but I feel that this idea moves it in the right direction as long as it remains clear that it isn’t deigned a “legal” victory.

I was going to go on about Mass Effect 3, but that merits a separate entry. Well, it’s time to start prepping for my exam on Wednesday. Later all.

How fascinating history is

This entry was pre-recorded just after midnight on Monday, 02/06/2012

Today, after a…series of moods and discussions, I was overcome with this weird feeling. It’s hard to explain, but it is this feeling that I typify with my life 10 years ago. It’s hard to really explain without going into intimate detail of how my life was at that time (enough so that I would feel somewhat uncomfortable publicly saying these things in this age of rampant net paranoia…an ironic and stark contrast resulting from said archive diving), but that’s how I felt. This mood rarely overtakes me, but when it does, I have a deep desire to do things that I associate with my past. My guess as to what triggered it is a werid combination of emotions from the conversations today, a feeling like I “deserved a break” after how productive I was yesterday (hard to explain how that would contribute, but trust me when I say it does), and being on a Shenmue kick while simultaneously playing P2:IS on my PSP.

One of my favorite things to do is go archive diving. I mostly do this on the LJ’s of people I used to know (the ones that aren’t defunct anyway T_T). I deliberately chose people that I have fallen out of communication with, because their net friendship was a sign of the past to me.

I didn’t do nearly as much of this as I would have liked, but I have an early morning group meeting tomorrow. Honestly, I should be sleeping right now. However, I took a 2 hour nap, subconsciously turbo-ed through more caffeine then I meant to, and my room mate is having a mini super bowl party in his room (which is kind of amusing, since he is a native Norwegian). So I figured I’d bleed off the former 2 through writing until I am tired enough to sleep through the latter.

Things I am reminded from through archive diving (I am paraphrasing these, so as not to reveal the identities, even the ones whose blogs are not defunct probably don’t want people to know that they wrote them).

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2002 was a really crappy year to be fresh out of college. There was a recession (due to 9/11) and employment was shit-difficult to find. The more things change, the more they stay the same (it’s not nearly the beast the current recession is though).

All the craziness of the (second) Iraq war. Say what you will about Obama, but anything is better then the previous regime.

Speaking of Obama, during the 2004 election, one of my old friends whom is an Illinois native said something to the effect of “screw Bush or Kerry, I want Obama as president.” I wonder if zie remembers zie wrote that?

I heard an interesting theory about the 3 stages of slash fandom (it is entries like these that make me make sure I stay annonymous, I don’t think those applicable would want their present or future employers to know about this). FWIW, I asked a current friend who is involved with that world (whom will ALSO remain anonymous, thankyouverymuch) and zie said the entry was rather accurate.

——-
Keep in mind this is circa 2003, a few things have changed since then, and I’ll talk about them later.

Stage 1: We’ll call this stage “OMG, TEH GAY IS SUPAR HOTTT!” Critera: Anything with a lot of PWP fic and potentially gay pairings. Anything that can be slashed, will be slashed. It doesn’t matter what the canon is or anything. The overwhelming appeal for slash conquers all. The metric for what is good is how much slash fic there is, regardless of quality or justification. The screaming girls that attend yaoi panels are among this archetype.

Stage 2: We’ll call this “The slash veteran.” The inital love affair is dead, and cooler heads prevail. Thsy still love the hobby, but that initial “new relationship energy” with their newfound hobby has faded away. They are a lot more selective with their fic and fanart, but still do engage a lot. They don’t feel the need to slash everybody, instead focusing on pairings they like and ones that work for them with their understanding of the characters and canon. They still have a good level of enthusiasm for the craft as a whole though. I am told these are the kinds of people that host yaoi panels.

Stage 3: We’ll call this “Slash burnout.” This is when it begins to wear on the person. They have been in this fandom thing for a very long time. They are tired of getting into fandom without canonical gay folks or the “meant to be slashed” folks. Upon entering a fandom, they see tens of thousands (maybe even 100K strong) of type 1 fans. The desire to see something other than flimsily made pairing based PWP fic or even a little het now and again leads the reaction to a royal shit-ton of slash fic to be met with a pained sigh, rather then the excited squee they had in the type 1 days. “The gay” is still an enjoyable hobby for them, and well written or canonically done output of this is still pleasing, but the idea of putting otherwise het men together with the flimsiest of justification makes this fan just roll their eyes and think “is there such a thing as a female** fan that isn’t stupidly slash-happy anymore?”

* I don’t like the whole begging to be slashed idea. It plays into behavioral normative patterns that reinforce stereotypes. The only reason I don’t protest it outright (anymore) is that there is no real evidence that they don’t have that kind of desire/etc (and sometimes is enough canonical evidence that they -might- to make a case for the pairing).

** I also don’t like the idea that slash has to be something “owned exclusively” by one gender. While homophobia being particularly strong among US male culture would be an obvious deterrent, even so much as mentioning you KNOW about it and are not female (there are agendered and genderqueer people, but if those aren’t female assigned, they will be implicitly grouped as males), then you are treated like someone who has intruded in the girls locker room. I could write a whole separate entry about that, and since I don’t want to derail this on a footnote, I’ll cut this off here.

A couple of things have changed since then.

1. Yaoi panels: They have never been my thing, but for those who can read in between the lines, you will have picked up that I knew (and still know) several people who used to be in to them (and have staffed them). They used to be a discussion about Yaoi proper, where to find some pairings, some dos and donts of fics, and some free doujin the panel owners’ personal collections to those who stayed the whole time. How they are now, as is my understanding, is just a big show of “look at the hot guys” thing. I am told that any males whom are in the vicinity will literally be forced to make out (It might not involve penetrative sex, but forcing people to do acts of intimacy they don’t want to is a subset of rape IMO. If a guy did that to two girls just because they were nearby whatever, they could and should get sued for that kind of crap). In the interest of avoiding a derail, I won’t go into this further.

2. Pr0nz fics and their ubiquitousness: Pr0nz started saturating the net right around the time this was written (they were always there, but the explosion within the fic comms’ began this year or last year). IMO, it didn’t gain “critical mass” for another year though. This was written right around the time LJ was beginning its apex, so it was multiplying rapidly. However, it still hadn’t QUITE reached that point. Nowadays it is so common and such an innate given that gen fic or het fic is hard to find. The hour glass has flipped completely over from where it was prior to the turn of the millennium regarding this. Disclaimer: As I said before, the slash scene is not my world. I just know many people who are well versed in it. A certain hypothetical person who looks, acts, and thinks just like me may have been involved in the pr0n fic scene a few times in the past though…

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Well, there is more to say, but I REALLY need to get to bed (even though I’m still not that tired). However, I’ll end this on an amusing note. Here is the exact text of a meme I found on one of the blogs I archive-dove (this was a Live Journal).

“If there is someone on your friends list you would like to take, strip naked, tie them to a bed post, lick them until they scream, then fuck them until both of you are senseless and unable to fuck anymore, then wait about 5 minutes, and do it all over again, then post this exact sentence in YOUR journal.

I swear on the holiest of everything that I am not making this up.

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(I had an awesome addendum, but then my laptop got heat flashed, stupid crappy Toshiba design. I’ll try to recreate it)

ADDENDUM v2 (02/07/2012): I did some more archive diving (I’ll post that in a separate entry if I have time and can parse interesting and relevant information). However, there is a common theme in the “modern day” entries of it. Apart from people who fell off the face of the digital earth for unrelated reasons, I found that…

-A lot of people who used to write/draw can’t get the motivation to do that anymore: I couldn’t get the motivation to write until I started this Norway thing. It isn’t an inspiration based on the place I am in so much as a desire to communicate the experience to those who will never get the chance.

-A lot of people can’t bring themselves up to indulge in the nerdery that used to and still does make them happy: I know ALL ABOUT this, but I think my case is somewhat different. I think that because I devote all my time to my scholastic or personal endeavors, I don’t have time to go gaming. Back at home, I almost always had homework, studies, people who needed help with both, or people who needed my help with other issues (for example, someone having an emotional breakdown). That takes all of my time. I can’t even go nerdy game babble anymore, but that’s for…different reasons (I might make some big old personal entry about this kind of thing too. Look at me, 2 entry ideas that I am positive I will never use because I’ll be busy, forget about it, and then the idea will be lost).

-Some people have removed themselves from the communities: This is so much me it hurts. Part of it is my extreme net-shyness that I’ve always had (something I’ll not derail the entry by covering here). Part of it is the busyness I mentioned above. I used to love being “net social”, and it is still the way I communicate best and surest. However, my net friends of old have all moved on, and I am not sure my life will allow me the time and luxury of new ones (I am SUPER crappy at making new friends “on purpose”, but that’s my own problem). One person interestingly described it as “being like Ms Havisham(sp?), all holed up with my animu, mangos, and vidiya game.”

-Some people have outright removed themselves from those worlds: They are different people then they were when they were back in the old days. Going on from the great period of personal college transition to being a “real” adult (for lack of a better description). They are no longer in to the hobbies of old (possibly, but they are much more discrete about it). This is usually a combination of being dejected by the crowds (oh how I am this with mangime, the crowds at Sankaku complex pretty much epitomize why I feel this way), or just not interested anymore. It’s not that they might not potentially be in the future, it’s just that life has more immediate and shifted priorities then the days of old did. One person said “my anime nerd and my everything-else nerd lines have crossed some time ago” in referring to zir increasing detachment from the mangime world. Another person said that [EVENT REDACTED] is what zie goes to instead of Anime Conventions nowadays. I was like this with the mangime world until my friends dragged me back in (I’ll never be as intensely in to it as I was back then though).

On the way we have relations relationships

It’s been a while since I wrote to this place. I’ve had a lot to say, but life has been a combination of one or more of the following things.
-I’ve been up to my eyebrows in scholastic obligations
-I’ve had a rather severe (and somewhat unexpected) bout with depression. I blame an illness and the odd weather we’ve had (it’s been spring-warm and then it snows in the same week. Welcome to Nebraska).
-I’ve had some…interesting social interactions which I don’t plan to expressly state the nature of
-I’ve been in to the game Masou Kishin: Lord of Elemental (the remake for the DS). I won’t go into the details of that here, since that’s what my other blog is for.

Anyway, during the course of my relationship with my awesome GF, I’ve noticed something. In several ways, she and I “defy pattern.” I don’t see anything wrong with that either (heck, I see that as a source of due pride). It’s just I’ve noticed several patterns people go through that she and I don’t.

1. The real-life pairing of archetypes.

A pairing that is surprisingly common is some derivative of a computer nerd and some derivative of a nerdy artist (who is somewhat tech-savvy, but not to the level of the computer nerd). I can think of 5 couples who fall under that pattern. Admittedly, these all follow another pattern in that it is a heterosexual relationship with the male as the computer nerd (and thus the female as the artist). I’m sure other non het relationships of this type have occurred, with no presumption of the gender of either one. My point is that this is a surprisingly common pattern among the nerd set. It fascinates me as to how this manages to work out. My hypothesis is that each one has some traits the other lacks (as analytical computing and artistic endeavors use considerably different parts of the brain AFAIK). These differences make for the ideal “compliment” to each-other.

2. The dating game

Modern “psychologically healthy” (something I am far from XD) courtship seems to be defined in an oddly rigid way. First you meet someone you are attracted to (or is attracted to you and you are giving him/her a chance). Then you try to lure them in to going on some sort of date. This usually is a specific social outing at a restaurant, movie, or other common outing. Oftentimes, the one playing the role of the “hunter” tries to show off their alpha status. To put it bluntly, the “hunter” gives the “hunted” bribes. While people claim the ultimate goal varies, commonly it is simply sex.

This is the “psychologically healthy” way to get laid. Whether it is “high” (fancy restaurant, etc) or “low” (clubs), it is a place where you find someone, give this person bribes, and have sex with them. Quite frankly, it is pretty much prostitution, only less “honest.” I hate it and am glad I never indulged in that world. This leads to…

3. “No sex, we’re married”

I can never ever fathom the idea of married couples not wanting to do it on the basis that their married. Sure I can see the job and the theoretical kids getting in the way, but having a complete libido burnout from committing to one person. Frankly, I find something seriously wrong with that. I know several people who are married (some for a while now) and some who are setting up to get married who will say how much they love the sex they get (and just to break the brain of the people mired in gender stereotypes, both the girls AND the guys say these things). I personally love sex. I know people love in several different ways, but I simply can’t fathom how people have this paradoxical “abstinence after extended marriage” thing going on. My guess is that the reason they got together was the ability TO have sex, and since the novelty and thrill is gone, they don’t have any desire to do it anymore. This is a terrible reason to get together, and it leads to my next point.

4. “I hate my wife.” (this is a paraphrased quote of GF’s co-worker)

To quote outstanding news reported George Putnam, “we come to a sad indictment of our society today…” by this idea. I can’t fathom being with someone I would hate, or being deluded into liking them prior to marriage. Unless you are like Sara Palin’s(sp?) daughter, who got married as a result of pre-marital pregnancy, I frankly can’t fathom this. I know that there are people who act in a certain way when they want to lure someone in. They completely change and show their true nature when they no longer have any fear of losing them. However, I don’t think that’s the case here (that has more to do with abusive relationships, and which is admittedly FAR WORSE then the idea I’m going for here). The idea that people can’t stand to be around someone they should theoretically love is somewhat baffling to me. Why the hell DID they marry them if they didn’t feel these things you would think they should? I love GF, and while she and I don’t believe in marriage in terms of the ritual (we might for tax reasons though, but that’s a long way off), she is the person I am FARTHEST AWAY from hating out of ANYONE. I love her, deeply and completely. I can’t stand the idea of NOT being around her (don’t misunderstand, I’m not some co-dependent person who will literally die if she isn’t in the same room, but I would prefer to spend as much time with her as possible).

Anyway, GF and I break every one of those patterns. Apart from the first one (which I am indifferent, yet amused that we defy), I am DEEPLY DEEPLY glad I don’t have to live that. There are other patterns she and I break, but I won’t go into that here.

Join us next time* when I talk about my opinions of monogamy versus polyamory.

*Not necessarily next entry