Mainstream Geeks

Biggest thing this week in gamer geek news has been this: League of Legends is an official sports in the USA. This is a stepping stone to the gamer world, a milestone. And it is pretty cool - the boundaries between online and offline are being torn down. You don't need to be in top physical condition to be an athlete - you can be something else entirely.

So, what else has been going on this year, concerning different kinds of geeks? Biggest Hollywood blockbusters this year: a movie about mechas thrashing it out and comic movies - Pacific Rim, Man of Steel and Iron Man 3 cropping up top. Everyone is trying to make the next Avengers movie. Games and comics are in. The places to be are E3, ComiCon, Playstation 4 and Xbox One launch events. Geeks are the popular culture.

What about Finland? Anime conventions are selling out, the Finnish Twitter is dominated by the anime and manga culture, and globalism makes all of what's happening elsewhere reflect here as well. What does all of this roll into, then, for geeks and geek culture?

We are mainstream. We won. Except we didn't.

Most of geek culture never wanted to be mainstream. It means we have the upper hand - we're no longer the epitome of a guy with coke bottle glasses that gets the stuffing beat out of him for his lunch money. We have to take responsibility now, instead of just shielding away behind the "we're the minority, everybody hates us" line. For the first time since the rise of geek culture, we would need to look at ourselves and see what's wrong on our side of the fence. And that doesn't come easy.

Sexism. Racism. Hateful slurs, hetero dominance, gay fear, oppression of belief. Not funny, eh? Log into almost any public game lobby, anonymous (or half-anonymous) online forum or any other public online agora where geeks compile and look around. We are the haters now, and have always been. It simply shows now, when we cannot shield behind being the bullied ones. This needs to stop. Yes, juvenile boys will be boys. No, we shouldn't feed the trolls. But that doesn't mean its ok, should be ok or will be ok to be a jerk to someone else, about anythingm, ever. The only way geek culture will "mature" is if we make it. If we, the ones who were the outcasts back in the 80's or the 90's, are actually at the center of what geek culture is, the change needs to begin with us. All of us.

We can't go around yelling "Everyone just hates us, boo hoo hoo!" anymore at every turn - we need to take responsibility for what happens on our turf. I wrote about games (specifically the newest Hitman game) in this regard about a year ago, and the point still stands. We can't do this shit. Not before, not ever, but especially not now. If we are the mainstream, we have the chance to be a better mainstream than it has ever been. But we need to start the change. We need to be better, not wait for the world to change. Man up, and take responsibility. Geekdom is no longer a hiding place. Get out there and change the world.

Edit: Looks like Moviebob said pretty much the same thing and more in a Big Picture episode a few weeks back. Go check it out at The Escapist.

Boston aftermath

About a week ago there was the horrible event of bombings at the Boston Marathon start line, that was followed by at least as horrible shootings and bombings during the rest of the week. Lives were lost, and we should reflect on what happened to be able to prevent such events from happening again. What I'm more worried about is the aftermath around the possible attackers and the responses that the chase and apprehension have evoked.

Situations like this should not be taken lightly. Bombings and random shootings are horrible and should be taken with all the seriousness. But what I was really taken aback by was the public and political response after the alleged still living attacker was caught (the highlighting there is important, so keep that in mind.)

I'm not taking a stand about whether or not Tsarnaev is guilty, there are professionals and such that will find out and decide that later, hopefully without bias or rancor. What was wrong, almost inhuman, to me, was the way people and the Republican party have reacted. People practically paraded out on the streets when the alleged attacker was caught - sure, he might have been guilty, but it's not yet sure, and there are some shady parts there. People all but whooped with bloodlust when he had been savagely beaten and was in a critical state, because it was felt that he deserved it.

A person that might have done horrible things deserved every imaginable deed of violence directed towards him. A person, a human being, that might have done something. Yes, what happened was horrible and yes, if he did it he should be convicted for it - convicted, not dragged through the streets like a rabid animal. The Republican party is calling for him to be treated as a non-American combatant - basically denying him all the basic human rights.

I understand that people, as a normal response to being in fear for a week, feel relief after they're told that the situation has been resolved. I understand that the relief might bubble out as joy, anger or other strong feelings that are directed in rather random directions. I refuse to understand the bloodlust and rancor people feel towards an alleged attacker. Even if he was the confirmed attacker, my god, would be butcher him like the Archbishop of Paris?

I understand the anger, the frustration of inaction and inability, the rage and sadness. I don't want to trod on anyone's loss. What happened was horrible, it was a tragedy beyond scope. But oh, humanity, a person - even after possibly committing horrid deeds - is a person, a human being, and should be treated as such. We are no longer savages, so let there be some humanity in how we act.

Smaller

When I'm sick, I always wish I was smaller. Not necessarily younger, but smaller. This would be because I get immense phantom pains when I'm sick, especially when I have a fever. It begins at the small of my back, an ache somewhere below the kidneys. When the fever rises a bit, the ache moves to the limbs: forearms, fingers and legs.

And, to top it all off, when the fever rises high enough, the pain moves to the skin. All of my skin burns, especially when touched. Clothes hurt, sitting hurts, showering hurts. And that's when I wish I was smaller, mostly because it would be nicer if the pain was... supressed, affecting a smaller area. If I was smaller, there would be less of me that could hurt.

I don't like being sick.

Foxfire

Well, the whole of Finland seems to be abuzz of foxfires, also known as aurora borealis or northern lights. I might as well jump in on the band wagon as it rolls by, so here are a few pictures from Jyväskylä.

It is a spectacular view, I must admit, and totally worth watching. I only saw greens tonight, but there's been a few pictures of purple tones up in the sky as well. The light show is still on in some places, so go check them out if you have the time.

Intouchables

- or how I restored my faith in humanity.

I watched Intouchables yesterday. It's a heartwarming, wonderful, brilliant movie and I wholeheartedly recommend it to everybody. I'll try not to spoil the movie as I go through the whys, but, once again, beware of spoilers. If you want to see the movie without any of it being spoiled, read this after you've seen it.

So, why is Intouchables such a good movie? Off the bat, it opens with an entrancing scene, immersing the watcher in the beautifully fitting soundtrack by Ludovico Einaudi. It's also fittingly cast, thoughtfully directed, well screened and the characters feel real. It makes sense they would feel real - the movie is based on a true story, after all.

The movie in and of itself isn't anything new or astounding: it's a growth story, it's about friendship, caring and courage. It's something that we've seen a thousand times before, in children's movies, in fantasy settings, in good-willing whole-family deals and all around in the kind of movies that air on tv during christmas. What makes Intouchables special is how real it feels. The characters act like real people: they're not cardboard cutouts, they do mistakes, tell horrible jokes, fumble and pick themselves up. They're afraid, they're in pain, they care.

And sometimes they dress up to smoke.

What made Intouchables spectacular to me was the amount of feeling they'd been able to put in there. There's some bumbling foolishness in the movie, but it's not the Adam Sandler -kind, it's real. It's the kind of goofy you might pull with a friend, and it's heartwarming. There's a scene where Philippe and Driss cruise around with the motorized wheel chair, and the whole point of it (atleast it seemed to me) is to make them feel real, feel like people.

What's most spectacular is how much you can feel the people care for each other. Even if it is underlined, even if it is "just a movie", it's based on a true story. Here we come to my secondary title. To me, watching a movie about people caring about each other - total strangers to begin with - that's based on real people, real friends, was the most spectacular thing. To know that there are people like this out there made the movie that much better.

My recommendation to everyone is to watch Intouchables if you haven't. Watch it alone, watch it with a friend, watch it at home or in the movies. Just watch it, laugh and cry and feel with the movie. It's definitely worth it.

Accumulated worth

When I first started this blog, it was supposed to be named Accumulated Worth (as might be seen in the url). I chose something a bit lighter, but I've felt I should explain both the namesakes, because there's a rather interesting thought (atleast to me) behind them both.

The name of the blog, Vesinokkaeläimen Viinakaappi, translates to the Platypus' Booze Cabinet. This actually spawned largely from the want of an alliterative name and the need to think of something funny. I like platypi, I find the conjointment of different qualities charming.

You know, like this.

And Booze Cabinet's are the place you go to for ideas, relief, oblivion... Kind of what I use this place for, only the other way around. In the subtitle (or ingress, maybe) there used to be more of the platypus' flat mentioned, other places that this blog might be. And it's true, this place is a bit of a hodge-podge, a place where I come to vent, think and comment. This place isn't really aimed on some specific audience, nor is it a theme blog. It just is, and you kind of have to accept it for what it is or skim most of the stuff.

The url, accumulated worth, comes from Terry Pratchett's book, The Unseen Academicals. According to the cover, the book is about football and life in general, and while I don't so much care about football, I was very interested in what Sir Terry might have to say about life in general. I'll try to avoid spoilers, but if you intend to read the book and don't want to spoil the fun, you might want to to leave this for later.

The protagonist -  or atleast one of them - is Mr. Nutt, a (probably) goblin working in the candle vats of the Unseen University. The workers of the candle vats are, all in all, an odd bunch, basically refuse and lost souls from the world above. Amongst them is the hard-working, well-mannered Mr. Nutt, who is kept at arm's length mostly for what he is - a goblin.

Mr. Nutt can be seen as a commentary on many things, as can most things that Sir Terry puts on paper. What struck me the most about the character, though, is the dogma he lives by. There's a question that Mr. Nutt keeps on asking, especially towards the end of the book, when he believes himself to be a burden, a hindrance or a problem. "Have I accumulated worth?" All of Mr. Nutt's relationships are based on this little question, "Have I accumulated worth?" In Mr. Nutt's world, worth is something you must accumulate. You must be useful, helpful, skillful and able. If you aren't you don't have worth. Worth isn't inherent, it isn't handed out freely. Worth must be gained, and it must be stocked, because, like from a badly seamed flask, it will pour out eventually.

It's not a very happy view of the world, and it's not one that I would like to see people live by, not fully. But I can see worth in it, and I can see it in myself and the people around me. I think it is good, from time to time, to ask if you have accumulated worth to other people. Have you been useful, or helpful? I think everyone should be, whenever they can, but not because of worth - because it's the right thing to do. But this is a good way to try to keep measure of it.

What is worse, however, is that I see this around be a lot. It's mostly subconscious, something that's been hardwired into us so deep that we don't even notice it anymore. Ask someone about their weekend, for example. "Oh, I did nothing, I just sat at home." Now, if it was the first weekend in months that the person did this, the follow-up might be "and it was nice and relaxing for a change." But if it's the second, or third weekend of this in a row, the follow-up will much more probably be "I really feel like I should have done something" or "I'm so lazy all the time, it's horrible" or something along those lines.

We've been taught to think that worth is doing stuff, being busy. And, by model and teaching, we've been taught that we should be busy all the time, lest we lose worth. If we're not productive, we're not just neutral. We're a hindrance, a load on everyone else. We can't possibly take time for ourselves, for we would seize to accumulate worth for that time.

I think everyone should think about accumulating worth - it's good to think of someone else from time to time - but we should also think about ourselves. When it starts to get too hairy, ask yourselves: is worth all there is to it?

Interactive storytelling

I wish to talk about storytelling in games - a subject I started on last week - by using a specific case example, The Walking Dead. I'll try to avoid spoilers about the plot, but those who have not played The Walking Dead and wish to get the most of the most out of it (and haven't been spoiled by anyone else) might want to stop reading here. Done? Alright, let's get going.

According to Telltale Games, the company behind The Walking Dead, it's an "adventure horror game series". Telltale Games has made episodic license adventure games their thing, with Tales of the Monkey Island and the Sam and Max franchise being the biggest ones until TWD. Now, The Walking Dead is based on Robert Kirkman's original comic book story that really hit the charts with Frank Darabont's live action series. It's basically a story about a zombie apocalypse, but with a sort of a twist. It actually focuses on the stories of the people that have survived instead of the surviving itself (for these, check every other zombie game from Left 4 Dead to Resident Evil).

The Walking Dead is a blast from the past - an adventure game. Adventure games were really in in the 1990's and for a while afterwards, but they've all but died out in the last five to eight years. Telltale Games is all about reviving this (back in the day) loved genre, and they're doing a more or less good job. What The Walking Dead isn't is as huge and unforgiving as the old adventure games - it's more like an interactive story where your choices count - it actually all but says it itself. It also plays pretty much like this.

The Walking Dead isn't that player intensive to play: lot of the events that come and go in the game are timed, even discussions: you only have a limited time to pick a talk option, or to solve a situation. What it focuses on are the choices: they're not easy, not black and white and they really do matter. The other characters remember what you say, and it changes how they speak and react.

The Walking Dead has an interesting feature: at the end of each episode, it takes five moral choices from the chapter and tells you how everyone else chose. I find it curious, since it anchors the already moral options into a larger frame. What did others do?

To me, The Walking Dead doesn't seem so much like a game - it's more like an interactive story and a pshychological exercise than anything else. If you needed to choose between two bad situations, which would you pick? If you needed to save someone and didn't have time to save everyone, who would you save? Who would you side with in a fight? How will you justify your choices to yourself?

I really like The Walking Dead. It's not much as a game, but it's a really good way to have a look at your own morals. I suggest it to everybody: it's a game for that will make you cringe, laugh, be angry and cry. It's sad moments are actually sad, the good moments actually good. The characters are real: they feel human and you can understand their choices - the why and how of their doings. It's got Clementine, probably the only six-year-old that's felt like a person instead of a midget stick-on you'd want to kick back to the sea. Try it, you might like it.