Listen to the Rain

Bandai-Namco: "What are your qualifications?"
Trailer Person: "I spent 2001-2010 making a ton of AMVs."
Bandai-Namco: "Say no more."

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Watch in 240p for the best experience.

From mid 00s Animemusicvideos.org removing all Evanescence AMVs due to a Cease & Desist order to this. I wonder if someone carried a grudge all this time?

New Year's meme time.

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Happy New Year to everyone!

Every couple years I bust out this image again:


At the moment things aren't too bad--they were originally forecasting a foot of snow but thanks to the lake effect, or maybe just a bit of luck, it's currently 1°C above freezing so most of that actually came down as rain. But, the real harsh thing is the temperature. It's supposed to drop 15°C overnight, and then another 10°C over the next couple days and with wind chill, it'll drop down to -35°C next week. Hopefully I won't have to go into the office!

My parents were going to come into the city to see Laila today, but that obviously didn't end up happening. I did manage to get to the grocery store, though, so we should be fortified again the cold. Curry tonight, chili tomorrow, time to heat up.

Might as well do it again. I did get some nice responses on the year I did it seriously:



sashagee and I got invited to a Ḥanukah party this weekend, so we're going. She suggested that her parents watch Laila and they agreed. Not sure we'll do anything else that weekend, but maybe. If we do, I'll write about it. There's only so much I can write about Laila being cute or me working on Cataclysm modding stuff before it gets too repetitive.

I was just thinking.

Me in normal life: "I dunno man, the Crusaders primarily had a political motivations even if they were also religious wars. The First Crusade literally began because the Romans requested aid in their wars against the Seljuk Turks! The earlier barring of Christian pilgrims hadn't been enough, but gave them additional justification for Pope Urban II's call to war. And the Fourth Crusade never even made it to the Levant. Not to mention the sheer number of pogroms as a side-effect of the Crusades, to such an extent that it sometimes seemed like the crusaders' aim was destroying the Jews in Europe rather than reconquering any part of the Holy Land. And-"

Me playing Crusader Kings II:

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In RPGs, I always play the good guy. I can never take the evil route even to see what the content is like, because I feel too bad about it. Most of the time this isn't much of a loss--the evil content in Bioware games is generally down to mustache-twirling puppy-kicking, where you're just an asshole for no reason--but games like Planescape: Torment, where you can manipulate people and destroy their lives and the previous life of the main character who caused the most evil was called "The Practical Incarnation," I do feel like I'm missing out.

But strategy games? My most recent game of Stellaris I was playing an empire of dark elves, who have a species trait that they can't stand having other free species in the same empire as them, so I enslaved everyone I conquered. I even found a lost genetic database from a vanished precursor civilization and brought back multiple extinct species just to enslave them and force them to work on worlds whose climate was unsuitable for elven habitation. When playing Crusader Kings II I'll underhandedly scheme to steal neighboring lands, arrange "accidents" if I have an heir that's less than promising, marry off daughters to powerful kings much older than them, the full gamet of pre-modern power politics. In Civilization my most memorable game was the game where the Celts, the Japanese, and the Aztecs were at war on and off for a thousand years and the land bridge that connected the continents containing our civilizations was a blasted radioactive wasteland from all the nuclear weapons that had been used on each other.

I think it's because there's no actual face or obvious personality for these games. Even CKII, which does have specific characters, has no dialogue or personality to the characters beyond any RP you do when playing them--having a character who's an incompetent diplomat affects your chances in events, but since you rarely have any direct dialogue, there's no strong sense of their incompetence. Having a character who's bad in battle is easily overcome by just not having your king directly command soldiers, so you can then be a brilliant tactician--though this is actually realistic since a king in his castle isn't giving orders on the field. I'm mostly playing an immortal bodiless dictator, not the specific character I'm playing in RPGs (or in real life)! It's the same separation that lets me be so ruthless in board games but not in TTRPGs. I don't get that when I have a specific character, and especially not one that I created.

Answering questions provided by fiachairecht! For the first five people who ask, I'll ask you questions too.

1) What's your favourite raid in FFXIV?

Hmm, this is a hard question.

In terms of aesthetics, it's probably The Weeping City of Mhach (pronounced "Vaḥ"), a ruined city of demon-summoners in the middle of a swamp. Their bound demons are still there, so it starts with swamp monsters and zombies and then gets more demonic as you approach the city, ending with a magical weapon system based on the secret boss from Final Fantasy IX and a surviving sorceress who transformed herself into a demon.

In terms of mechanics, it's The Orbonne Monastery, featuring beloved Final Fantasy Tactics favorites Mustadio Bunansa, Agrias Oaks, Cidolfus Orlandeau, and Ultima the High Seraph as, respectably, a giant killer robot, a literal avenging angel, a death god (canon), and Ultima the High Seraph. The first fight has a lot of dodging sniper shots and facing particular directions, the second has picking up divine swords and shields and using them at the appropriate times, the third fight is a lot of running in and out, and the fourth fight involves avoiding miniature version of bosses from other raids and navigating a maze while dodging attacks. I love it and I wish that it wasn't so unpopular.

Plus it has some of the best voice acting of any fight in the game. With quotes like:

Agrias
"The hearts of men are black with corruption and must needs be cleansed!"

"Seven shadows cast, seven fates foretold. Yet at the end of the broken path lies death, and death alone."

Ultima
"Denizens of the abyss! From ink of blackest night, I summon you!"

"To maintain order, one must first have control."

But the real standout is Cid:

Cid
"I am Count Cidolfus Orlandeau. Your journey ends here."

"Open your eyes to the darkness, and drown in its loveless embrace. The gods will not be watching."

"Misfortune hangs heavy on a head once held high. Such is poor cover for when the heavens fall."

"To live by the sword is to die by the sword. There is time enough for regret in the flames of hell."

And his limit attack:

"I have been called the god of thunder. You will now know why! Upon my holy blade the very world lies in balance."

"And
now
the
scales
will
tip!"

It made it baffling when I got to the Nier raids later and there was no voice acting. Nier raids win for music, though.

2) What's a book/album/[insert choice of media category here] that feels like it was made just for you?

Spinning Silver by Naomi Novik, which I always describe to people as "Jews vs. the Fair Folk." One of the major problems with so much European medievalish fantasy is that there is no European Christianity without Judaism, not just because of historical outgrowth reasons but because we were the eternal comparison point for Christianity (this is explicit in some Christian writings, where they state that G-d keeps us around to show the dangers of "rejecting" Jesus). Spinning Silver is still an obvious product of modernity--there's a joke in there about the Christian servant thinking the Jews are casting "spells" over their bread (because they're reciting the blessing before meals in Hebrew) and this does not lead to accusations of witchcraft and pogroms like it probably would in real history--but also there are ice faeries demanding the heroine turn straw into gold, which she refuses to do on Shabbat. What more do you want?

3) What's a place in Japan that you've not yet been to that you would like to visit?

The Sea of Japan coastline. I've been there very briefly, to Tottori dunes and to 出雲大社 izumo-taisha and Matsue, but otherwise I haven't really been there at all. There's some beautiful beaches on the side of the islands and it's generally more rural since it's not on the Tōkaidō. Having lived in a rural area for years there, the cities are nice but rural life is where it's at. There are plenty of small towns next to fabulous natural wonders that I bet get almost no foreign tourists because no one knows they're there, or even places like Sandankyō in Hiroshima which is well-known and beautiful but not on a train line. I could spend a whole two weeks on that coastline.

4) Do you prefer being a player or GM in TTRPGs, and why?

GM. My primary interest in fictional worlds is in worldbuilding, in seeing how the setting works and where the assumptions lead. Just lately I've been reading up a ton on the Second Apocalypse book series because it has a lot of non-standard metaphysical worldbuilding assumptions--"morality" is a measurable property of the universe like gravity or mass, which means that it's possible to scientifically prove if someone is damned to hell or not (and it turns out like 99.99% of people are) the same way you can do a blood test, or to show that snakes are holy and pigs are profane--but I've never actually read any of those books and probably never will.

What that means is that I love doing a bunch of setting creation and finding a way to integrate that into fun gameplay without doing an infodump (i.e., the thing that Tolkien got right and so many fantasy authors don't). For my Warlords of the Mushroom Kingdom game I had a hierarchy based on video game history, so before the modern stuff based on 8- and 16-bit games there were fallen arcade game precursor civilizations, like the crabs from the Mario Bros. game, the flying demons from Ghouls 'n' Ghosts, or an empire of Donkey Kongs. I get my fun worldbuilding exercise, the players get to find the overgrown ruins of a Kong Imperium temple-city in the jungle, and we all have a great time.

As a player I don't usually get to participate in worldbuilding and (maybe paradoxically) the RPGs that do allow it for players are ones I don't like to play that much.

5) What surprised you most about becoming a parent?

How much and how little human children know. I had no idea that humans had to be taught to laugh and smile. When Laila was born, she could cry, and otherwise she had a blank expression and we could really only tell what she was interested in by where she was looking. It was really funny when I was playing airplane with her, because I'd be holding her above my head and flying her around and she was just 😐 the whole time, but by her eyes we could tell she was really enjoying it. When she started laughing, she went through a few iterations of laughs, including one that sounded like a hacking cough and one that sounded like she was gasping for air, before settling on her current cute baby giggle.

On the other hand, I also didn't realize infants can instinctively swim. When we took Laila to the mikvah, I had to let her go into the water so she would be completely surrounded, and as soon as she went underwater she immediately closed her mouth and stuck her arms out, exactly what you need to do to slow your descent and make sure you don't inhale any water.

But honestly, the thing that surprised me is how much I love it in a way I did not expect. I realize that I'm not to any of the hard parts (though we had an any% hard part speedrun thanks to her spasms), but I think modern American culture focuses too much on the difficult parts of parenthood and not the joys.

Plus, yeah, evolutionary conditioning. It really is different when it's your kid.

It's that time of year again


I recently heard an interpretation that, as the names suggest, Bar Kamtza was Kamtza's son and they had had a complete falling out, which adds extra tragedy to the שנאת חינם (sinat ḥinam, "baseless hatred") that led to the Temple being destroyed.

Last year I didn't go to services for Tisha b'Av and the year before that it was online, but this year it'll be in person again--I'm going to a reading of איכה (eiḥa, translated in English as the Book of Lamentations but literally meaning "How?") at Anshe Emet because they're partnering with Mishkan. I've been there for stuff before, and I still sometimes get some of their emails, which I ignore because I'm on the "young adult" list because everyone who meets me thinks I'm thirty, but not since before the pandemic. I'm curious to see if it's changed at all, though I won't get much of an opportunity to look around.

Going to be offline for 48 hours, thanks to Shabbat and the holiday. I'll be a nice reset.

The audience for this joke is small, but I am in it--Steamed Hams, in the style of the Megillat Ester.

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Internet recitation tonight that I'm planning to go to. It won't be as good as in person, but it'll still be nice.

Sure, I'll do this again. Quote:

comment with your username (any and all social media platforms welcome!) and people will anonymously reply to your thread with bits of encouragement, well wishes, declarations of undying devotion, etc. secret santa style! tell all your friends and spread some lovely end of year cheer. ♥

No, not the Sluggy Freelance arc.

Found this quiz on Tumblr last night and while usually I take them and just let them go--my Dragon-Blooded aspect is Wood, for whatever it matters--this one stuck with me enough that I wanted to preserve it. So here's the What Type of Timeless Space Are You? quiz. Here's my answer:

stepping outside of the house during a party
You step out into the night sky. It's sometime between 1am and 4am. The door closes and the music is muffled, bleeding into the silent night. A tipsy smile on your face, a reoccurring feeling that you have to remember this moment, you have to remember the feeling of the blush on your face, of the bacardi on your lips, of the blurred twinkling of the stars, of the muffled ABBA song playing from your best friend's Bluetooth speaker. Some day this will be a memory, some day when you are old and grey, this will be a memory and you will smile for the feelings you once had and mourn the loss of them. Appreciate the slowness of time, it is slowing so you can appreciate it properly. Is it working? Things are going to change whether that is a comfort or not, and time will not be so kind, but for now you are here. Your feet are firm on the ground and it is all you can do to appreciate the time you've been given, it's yours to spend, it's yours to make memories with, and it is your responsibility to gift these memories to yourself. So full of life, so young, time does not stop for you, but it is slowing right now. Remember this moment, when you're surrounded by friends. You sit under the stars for hours. When you go back inside, the ABBA song reaches its final verse.

Some of my best party moments have been when I stepped outside to chat with the people who were gathered around a fire or huddled under a light or out of the wind.

We're all in timeless space so often now--find out what version of it you are.

Happy New Year! I drank too much last night and I haven't felt 100% today, but it was nice and relaxing. thosesocks invited me and some other people over for a quiet day listening to folk music and eating cheese. I made zenzai, traditional Japanese red bean New Year's soup, and thosesocks made tea for us all, and now I'm at home with a wood-wick candle burning and watching Reverse Angle's take on the 1998 Godzilla.

It's been a good year. On Facebook, I wrote:

I went into 2019, teeth barred and a knife behind my back, ready to immediately start stabbing the moment it looked like anything was threatening.

Three, maybe four months in, I put the knife down and kept walking, and I haven't felt the lack.

People repeatedly tell me how different I am. How I seem like an almost completely different person than I used to. They tell me that I'm more social than they could have imagined even for themselves, and ask me how I have the energy to do it. My *sister* told me that she was jealous of my social life and asked me for my secret, and let me tell you, that was the day that Hell froze over.

At my last party, people kept asking me "How do you know all these people!?"

The story of the last decade was, I suppose, of being a plant in a glass bottle. I had plenty of light and water, but when I hit the edge of the bottle I just stopped growing and I figured that was the limit of the world. When in 2018 the glass shattered, I thought that it was a world-ending disaster...but it actually let me grow in ways I hadn't thought were previously possible.

In 2019 I made a bunch of new friends. I started dating again. I put down the video games that have defined my life for thirty years because I *don't have time to play* because I'm too busy seeing people, going to theatre shows, watching movies at friends' houses, and going to museums. I am, in other words, a new man.

So, bring on the roaring 2020s. Give me neon noir, synthwave jazz, electric-blue cocktails in dingy speakeasies, black trenchcoats with collars turned up against climate-change-induced polar vortices, and, hopefully, a story I can start with "And then she walked in." I am more than ready

So there's a good summary of my year! It was a great year overall.

The song that defined my 2018 was "Dynasty," by Miia:

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But the song that defined 2019 was "Gorgeous" by Illenium:

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It was a good year.

Here's my answers for the traditional New Year's forty questions meme:

( Forty questions )

Might as well do a thing:



Colors changed because you know.

ironymaiden gave me three things that I may not know or care about, but it turns out that I do:

Cyberpunk

Go back through my clothing tag and you'll see that I love cyberpunk aesthetics. I love asymmetrical clothing, layering, lots of pockets, draping, black, hoods/face-concealing scarves, the works. I love neon, I love rain, I speak Japanese so I love signs with kanji on them, and it's thanks to all that that I can say:

Cyberpunk is just Asian cities.

Cyberpunk is the opposite of transhumanism--it's about how technology is insufficient to save us from the fundamental flaws of being human. The modern world is a cyberpunk dystopia, with universal surveillance, corporate control over most aspects of daily life, the global economy run for the benefit of about a hundred people, looming environmental collapse, and extreme wealth stratification, without even the benefits of being able to cut off your arm and put a gun there. So people focus on the aesthetic aspects of cyberpunk, rooted in a retro-future 80s of neon and chrome.

But that's just East Asia. I lived in rural Japan, but I've spent plenty of time in Tōkyō. Rain-slick neon streets, signs with Chinese characters on them, thousands of people all wearing the same dark suits with the occasional iconoclast wearing stand-out fashion, staying up until 4 a.m. on a street filled with buildings each of which is filled with bars, skyscrapers to the horizon in all directions mixed with remnants of ancient traditions trying to hang on...that's Tōkyō. To a lesser extent, it's Kyōto, it's Ōsaka, it's Singapore, and though I've never been, pictures I've seen of Beijing, Shenzhen, Hong Kong, Chongqing, Seoul, and so on all fit the same theme. Take a look at Liam Wong's portfolio for an example of photos of Tōkyō turned into a cyberpunk wonderland with just a little color tweaking, but also check the cyberpunk tag on Tumblr. A lot of cyberpunk aesthetic Tumblrs just post photos of Tōkyō or Hong Kong at night and call it a day. And that isn't even getting into how a lot of Western cyberpunk media is just Asian cities mostly devoid of Asian people. Who are all those signs in kanji for, anyway?

Still, the aesthetics fascination provided lists like this one and let me develop an actual sense of style, so I can't complain too much.

Salmon

Is the best fish and I eat it every day.

Okay, not every day, but pretty close. One thing about living in rural Japan is that you have to adjust to food availability if you don't want to spend a fortune, and since I couldn't get my pre-Japan breakfast of hummus, melba toast, Greek yogurt, grape juice, and hard cheese in Japan--literally none of that was available in Chiyoda--I flailed around for a while before I adopted a Japanese breakfast of miso soup and rice. Originally I put kōyadōfu in the miso soup, but I can't get that in America (edit: I can, it's just extremely expensive), so I switched to salmon because fish is a traditional part of Japanese breakfast. Originally I ate it pan-fried, but I started salting it, letting it cure for a couple days, and then cooking it (called 塩鮭 shiozake, "salted salmon") and I wouldn't go back. It's delicious.

Salmon isn't my favorite sushi, though. That's fatty tuna.

Umbrellas

I've needed an umbrella a lot lately because thanks to climate change, Chicago's weather is getting wetter. Last summer it rained a lot, this May broke the record for wettest May ever, and after winter lasted straight through until mid-May, June is a cool, wet spring. Just this week it's already rained three days, it's supposed to rain all day tomorrow, and it's probably going to rain again on Sunday. I basically reflexively grab my umbrella as I walk out the door. Fortunately I'm used to this, since Japan had a rainy season in late June/early July, but I didn't expect it to come to Chicago.

My favorite Japanese word related to umbrellas is 傘傾げ kasakashige, referring to the practice of tilting one's umbrella away from other pedestrians when passing them in the street or stopping to chat with them to avoid dripping water on them. It's not in modern dictionaries because it's centuries old and I've even read questions by Japanese people asking other Japanese people what it means and the answerers having no idea, but it's such a great word.

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I'd be happy to give anyone else who wants them three things.