I love Kaiki!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This layout is based on the layout available here by Lovely Designs. It's not really an exact copy, because the original used a bunch of separated images, but it has that vibe.
This is my blog! It will probably be incredibly sporadically updated as I try to come up with things to write about.
12/03/2025
This will probably sound weird if you're one of the fans I allegedly have somewhere out there, and par for the course if you've come here via my sporadic log-ins to Agora Road, but despite running a fansite for a VN company I generally don't like nerd/geek culture - and subcultures in general.
This is due to the fact that they often lead people to self-identify off the media they consume (what clothing they wear, what music they listen to etc) instead of more proactive actions or just plain personality traits. I might run a fansite, but I wouldn't consider Type Moon fan or anime or VN or manga fan or nerd to be an important part of my IRL personality. Online I might write alot about this "hobby"(?) of mine to the point it might seem like my personality, but in the real world I'm just another normie really.
I'm not going to get into any theory as to why subcultures are like that - from my memory I did that on Agora - or even dislike of "counterculture" for never really countering the monoculture well at all - I made an incendiary comment on that topic on Agora and then haven't logged in since. This is really just here for me to beg you to believe me that I'm a pretty unnoticable normal guy IRL and that Type Moon or anime and manga in general probably wouldn't come up in conversation if I talked to you.
I'm normal, please believe me.
Also, had a seminar today on libertarianism (the course is on capitalism in general), and was shocked the full-on Leninist we had taking the course didn't shown up to make points against him. Maybe he was busy doing agitprop or something. But suprisingly, while nobody there was a libertarian - except maybe one guy - , people tended to be generally quite positive on Hayek (who we spent most of the seminar on about), even if not so much on Rand or Nozick.
While people disagreed with him, it was maybe slightly more positive than it was about Marx. And I'd generally agree, that while I don't agree with Hayek's views on state intervention in general - I think prices not being optimum or resources not being allocated to peak market effiency is an acceptable trade-off for food-banks, state healthcare, etc - I can agree with him far more on the broadstrokes of having an overall market economy due to the price mechanism than the planned economy that Marx advocated for (at least during the dictatorship of the proletariat).
See, even my political views are middle-of-the-road.
Also decided to watch PMQs today and rememebred why I usually just read the news about Parliament rather than watch it live. Starmer and Badenoch spent the entire time posturing, Starmer kept deflecting to "I have to do all this because of the problems caused by the Tories" whenever he was pressed on why he was commiting to some austerity measurws and he completely ignored the request for an inquiry into the murder of David Amess. And Farage obviously couldn't be bothered to show up. The only party leader who I liked there was Ed Davey who obviously has the post office scandal in his past, so I think the country may be semi-snookered on domestic issues. Although, I have to say I'm shocked as to how Starmer has proved himself a really deft international politican - he's tightened bonds with Europe, avoided some of the harsher US tariffs - although not all - (in fact Trump seems to be head-over-heels for him based on past comments) and has taken a leading role in hopefully leading to a positive rather than negative peace in Ukraine.
So hey, even if the working class, the disabled and the mentally ill get fucked over by austerity and he goes ahead and proves the tabloids right about him being "Two Tier Kier", at least the UK will have good international standing.
I hope the Two Tier stuff doesn't make me look like a right-winger but that whole "have judges show leniancy based of race/cultural background" nonesense is pretty outrageous and I hope it gets reversed. If laws do discriminate against certain groups, then reforming those laws should be the goals, not judicial activism.
I hope my views on current events have also convinced you - the viewer - that I'm just another normie with typical views.
Jokes about how I'm trying to convince you I'm normal aside, I really am just a normie at the end of the day.
10/03/2025
Taken down all music just in case it was too far. Just basing that off how wikis have tonnes of images but no music (most of the time)
08/03/2025
Drew This:
While I should have been working yesterday. There were already some drawings of anime characters other volunteers had drawn there and I decided to add my poorly drawn Saber there too.
Might take it down in a couple of days just so I don't end up accidentally doxxing myself.
24/01/2025
Listening to: The Pirates of Penzance
Mood: Miffed
I update this site far too infrequently for me to keep doing the whole different archives per month crap, there simply won't be enough space. Haha. I'll start moving earlier posts back to here at some point (If I don't get bored again).
Right now I've had some fun playing Sonic Adventure 2 on the gamecube - the fact I suck at Sonic Adventure 2 and some of the jank aside.
Also, the shop I work at today got robbed (technically). Some stuff was kept on a shelf that wasn't directly viewable by the person on the till was stolen in about 2 hours after being put out or so. I wonder what kind of shithead steals from a charity shop anyway. I spent around 10 or so minutes on the till so I wonder if it was partially my fault for not paying enough attention to that area. Oh well.
04/04/2024
Sorry for radio silence for a month for anyone who actually follows this site or for disappearing midway through an argument on Agora if anyone on there actualyl checks this site but I'm busy IRL visiting family for the holidays and preparing for essays and such - and I'd rather find recreation in passive stuff like books, tv, etc than active stuff like the website and arguing on forums. I'll probably come back when my essays are all done and handed in - so late May.
On the topic of books, I finally finished Les Misérables after getting it for my birthday in 2022. Good book, even if it's obvious that Hugo got away from the editors. Very "epic" for lack of an other word and you can really tell why it became the "bible" for 19th centuary France considering it's far-sweeping narative of the lives of pretty much every social sector - even if it is explicitly left-leaning. I know Hugo praises socialism in the book - but it's vauge enough for it to be unknown whether or not he means socialism socialism or if he's another in the long lines of social democrats who mistakenly call themselves socialists - which probably helped with mass appeal. Good book, but something I can't really talk about in any depth without just repeating stuff the book itself claims is the meaning because it's pretty explicit about the morals and political takes.
Also been playing Spider-Man 2, have some issues. Spoilers!!!:
Not a big fan of the writing so far, the game clearly suffers from being a video-game. Kraven and Venom both seem like casualities of the fact that in a videogame that has to have multiple missions, side-quests, etc you can't just have Spider-man fighting them throughout over and over so instead they have lackeys now.
Kraven's case might be worse in some ways but Venom's seems worse in others.
With Kraven, him sending out wave after waves of goons to do his dirty work really underplays the "alpha-male super-machismo hunter" gimmick he has going on, as much as they try to pull the "he's only sending goons out to deal with enemies not worth his time card". A villain like him - espcially someone who's so bad-ass he's been killing villains offf-screen apparently easily and who is "searching for a worthy opponent" needs to be a one-man show who shows up, kicks as much ass as a whole army and then disappears into the darkness. The actual army just makes him feel like Mister Negative or Kingpin or any of the other "boss" characters. But at least it keeps his basic "Looking for a good hunt/fight gimmick.
The same can't be said for Venom, who I'm more against having goons for how I feel it dilutes his main gimmick than for it making him feel less badass. The section where you play as him, kick ass easily and kill Kraven sells him as a powerful threat enough. But him having goons seems to (I've only got as far as him attacking MJ) have changed his persona and undercuts the main appeal of Venom. On the latter note first, it simply undercuts your "He's the evil version of Spider-man thing when there are tonnes of other weaker evil-Spider-men in the form of the other symbiotes. And for the former, I feel that Venom works best when the host and the symbiote are in-sync in someway - the symbiote wants to help it's owner achieve it's goals but in it's own fucked-up way. That's how it affects Peter in the game, but for some reason the moment it gets on Harry it has nothing to do with his goals and instead just wants to bring more symbiotes to the Earth. No matter how many times the Symbiote says the word "heal" or something to that affect to discribe this plan, it doesn't change the fact that Harry's goals don't naturally translate to that. He's an eco-activist if anything, he has no reason to go along with the whole "Invasion of the Body Snatchers" thing. Hell, because the characters in the game seem to be written as too "cuddly" for lack of a better term (Peter justs wants the best for everyone, so does Miles, MJ is kind of bland but nice, Harry just wants to save the planet, all of Miles' friends and family are nice as is everyone in his neighbourhood, Danika is fucking annoying with how saccharin she feels, even Norman Osborn has gone from asswhole capitalist in the last game to just wanting to save his son) that he seems to just suddenly "turn evil" over Norman (completely out of nowhere) pulls the old "I feel like you were my Son, Peter" in what I believe is their first scene together that's not a flashback (except unlike other Spidey media that has this dynamic, there's no sense that Norman prefers Peter to Harry to fuel any resentment, it's one scene and he mentions he feels like Peter was his son specifically because he spends so much time with his actual one) and his body starts to collapse from not having the symbiote stopping his illness. It really feels like Venom is just the symbiote and that Harry has no real motive so far - to be fair Venom has basically just shown up, so maybe they'll explain away the Symbiote takeover as some way to get "friends/ family who respect him" or something to tie it in with the whole "my friend tried to destroy the suit I need to live and my Dad had literally one line of dialogue where he felt affection for someone other than me thing", but Peter's lines about the Symbiote wanting to recreate it's home planet or whatever it was makes me feel they've only come up with a motive for it, and not Harry too.
Also, a lot of the dialogue is cringey.
Fun game, but bad plot.
See you around,
The dumbfuck
04/03/2024
Finally finished Owarimonogatari part 3, and while there is still Zoku Owari and the various seasons that came after the "Final" Season, I feel satisified largely as an ending to Araragi's wild ride.
To be honest, I was a little shocked at how well they tied everything up so cleanly - even if some characters like Nadeko were barely in it, they felt like they had finished whatever arcs they'd been going on. I liked how she quoted Kaiki towards the end of her conversation with Tsukihi, too - really made it clear he rubbed of on her for the better.
I'm not good - despite having taken English up to A-Level at summarising and analysing texts - especially, oddly enough, the stuff I enjoy - so I'm going to be brief in my discussion of the ending.
It felt like somewhat of a circular ending for the Series - ending with a story (Ougi Dark) about saving yourself - here meaning coming to grips with the emotional issues said abberation represents. Just like Senjougahara had to accept her emotions over her mother to deal with the Weight Crab, Araragi had to accept his self-criticising nature to deal with Ougi. And then Meme deals with whatever supernatural elements exist. This isn't really analysis so much as the literal text - because I am bad at analysis - but I enjoyed seeing the series paying off on something that - while never a focus - was everpresent (I'm refering to how hard Araragi is in himself in his narration) both through Mayoi and his trip through Hell where he basically affirms his choices in life, for better or worse and through his literal manifestation of that as a person. With the latter tying it all the way back to Meme.
Owari 3 really did feel like a vindication of Araragi and his way of doing thigs - especially after the trouncing they got back in Part 1, and I feel that - actual ending or otherwise - that type of thing, where you vindicate one of the "central pillars" of the series like that and claim there is a meaning to it - and presumably therefore the series - works well as an ending. It's the same reason why, despite knowing there were later Light Novels in the series, the Disappearence of Haruhi Suzamiya felt like a great ending for the series.
It's something that, if I were ever to write creatively in any long term project, I'd likely try (and probably fail) to pull of in the ending of it.
All in all, it's the best book in the series so far and a 10/10 in my book. Absolute masterpiece, Ougi best Girl Boy Girl Boy whatever. My preference for crossdressers makes me want to call them a boy and claim I'm actually basing it on stuff like them being an offshoot of Araragi and them dressing like a Boy in Hana - their chronologically last (of what I read) appearence.
I wonder where Meme went right after acknowleding Ougi, though. I do feel it was a bit of a shame we got to see all the specialists interacting. All the yaoi art of Meme and Kaiki I've seen really had me excited to see them on the same page.
02/03/2024
Just saw a "VN Iceberg" on Reddit. Clannad and Fate/SN were both fairly low, and Tsukihime was in the second from bottom tier. This is really pissing me off. If it weren't for the fact that I don't have any social media really, I'd make my own just out of spite for how insane it is to claim that stuff like Clannad and Fate are obscure.
Just kidding, I'm making one out of spite anyway. Doesn't really have all too much done by this point, and I realise I'm just adding yet another WIP to my pile but IDC.
In other news, nothing. At least not personally.
I suppose one thing is that somebody in one of the seminars said something very strange, that Hamas' charter contains no reference to Palestine and is all about how they plan to massacre the Jews in Israel. The second section after the Preamble is literally called "the land of Palestine" and states "Palestine, which extends from the River Jordan in the east to the Mediterranean in the west and from Ras Al-Naqurah in the north to Umm Al-Rashrash in the south, is an integral territorial unit. It is the land and the home of the Palestinian people. The expulsion and banishment of the Palestinian people from their land and the establishment of the Zionist entity therein do not annul the right of the Palestinian people to their entire land and do not entrench any rights therein for the usurping Zionist entity." - in other words, it explicitly gives the borders they want (back). While it's true there is a heavy religious element, that is in Islamicism ("Palestine is an Arab Islamic land. It is a blessed sacred land that has a special place in the heart of every Arab and every Muslim.") and not so much in reference to the Jews.
In fact, they explicitly deny that they want to kill the Jews, saying "Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity." While it seems obvious to me a "reverse-Nakba" or a massacre is the only feasible way to (re)gain the borders they want from Israel, I think it is clear they would accept some sort of diplomatic solution that gave them these borders - not that it would ever happen.
So, why the not-quite-defense of Hamas from this person? It's relevant in terms of something that was being discussed in the Seminar - would we have anything to worry about from a nuclear-armed Hamas? Here, whether or not Hamas is a nationalist (my belief) terror group or a religious one is key. My argument was that Israel at least wouldn't - as in they wouldn't need to worry about being nuked - because what good would it be for Hamas to get the borders they want if it's largely an unusable wasteland? The same thing applies to Israel attacking Gaza - they want the land, and while you can rebuild what's been bombed with conventional weaponry reasonably easily, you can't do that with a nuclear wasteland.
The "Hamas just want genocide" argument therefore was in counter to mine.
I never had a chance to say this yesterday because we ran out of time before I could double-check the Hamas charter, but because I can't let things go, I'm whining about it here.
I'm curious as to why he believed something that was - as far as I knew obviously false - to the point I began to doubt it myself. But it turns out, that if the source (see the footer) was a reliable one, I was right. As to why someone so confidently - who claimed to have read it themselves (and someone I trust not lie) - seemed to get things wrong.
The obvious culprit seems to be the fact that Hamas has had two charters over time, an earlier one containing such lines as "'The Day of Judgement will not come about until Moslems fight the Jews (killing the Jews), when the Jew will hide behind stones and trees. The stones and trees will say O Moslems, O Abdulla, there is a Jew behind me, come and kill him. Only the Gharkad tree, (evidently a certain kind of tree) would not do that because it is one of the trees of the Jews.' (related by al-Bukhari and Moslem)." Which implies genocidal intent.
Assuming that he simply believed this was their current charter, the issue becomes, again, why?
I see no reason why anyone knowledgeable enough about Hamas would mistake their old charter for their current one.
If I had to guess, I would lay the blame on the fact that Hamas has not officially revoked this charter. The issue here is simple, 'If they have not revoked their old one - despite their new one contradicting it - why should we believe their new charter?' The logic here relies on due to Hamas being a terrorist organisation you can't just take them at their word.
On the one hand, it's right to be sceptical of anything any political actor says (including randos writing about politics on the internet), but on the other - their current charter lines up with their current demands and when we can't 100% tell what people's intent actually is, their stated one is often all we have to really go off.
In conclusion, I have no conclusion. I'm not close enough to the issue to tell what Hamas wants 100%, and cautiously suggest taking Hamas at their words. There's no point in committing terrorism with explicit demands to be met if you don't actually want those demands to be met.
Sadly, it doesn't seem anything is going to get any better in the region.
In fact, it seems in terms of the news that the Israel/Gaza war and the Ukraine War are both getting pretty dire. At least dire enough in Gaza that it really seems that the USA won't be able to justify supporting Israel to their populace after that attack on the food queue and dire enough in Ukraine that Macron won't rule out sending French troops.
Looking at stuff like Ukraine, I'm warming up to the idea of NATO (which I'm going to completely shoot in the foot whatever ""Leftist"" credentials I have left - not that I have any with how often I shit on them - by saying I like in principle - as in I like defensive alliances - even if I've never really liked their conduct) having its own army if only to use in a hyper restricted defensive sense.
I mean, with MAD and all - it's not like Putin will ever attack anyone nuclear-armed - he's not stupid. Getting nuclear nations' on the ground against another nuclear nation seems to me like something that escalates the stakes to the point where you'd be suicidal not to get to negotiation.
(If you couldn't tell the Seminar was largely about nuclear weapons - and largely about MAD at that.)
26/02/2024
The last couple of days have been pretty uneventful, I've largely just sat around procrastinating.
Today has seen some incredibly bad news land at my feet - that all the fridges in my accomodation are broken and - having asked the people in charge of fixing things about a fridge related issue over a week ago and it only "fixing itself" today due to the fridges breaking, I don't have high hopes really. THat's going to mean a lot of buying milk for cereal and coffee as well as pretty much every meal other than the aforementioned cereal just before I cook it and alot of stuff I'll have to throw out.
Oh well. First world problems I suppose.
Meanwhile, I've done some work on this website - it still being a work in progress and all - and have applied to join a webring. Due to 90% of this being unfinished, not giving a name and instead asking if it was okay to use my url as a name as well as the unsolicitated bad political takes found here, I'm sure to be rejected but what are you gonna do?
I was unsure if I should even apply to a ring like that to begin with. On the one hand I'm selfish and want more people looking at my website (Or "I want to share what I have made with others" if I want to sound more magnanimous) but on the other so much of this is still in the Default "Welcome to neocities" state that I'm not sure if I want people seeing what exists so far until it's a little bit more polished up/actually finished. In a way, it might be because I've bit off more than I can chew/have too much on my plate but I've signed up, will probably get rejected and that will be the end of that. Or I pile more on it by being accepted.
If I want to get in, I should really stop sounding so negative and selfish about all of it, lol.
In other news, found some more out-there (positive) and out-there(negative) sites on this site. It was an interesting dive to go through whilst I should have being paying attention to my lectures. I hope nobody saw my screen (I do sit in the back corner afterall) when I found that one that kept spamming the n-word to keep transgenders (although they didn't use that term of course) off their site.
well, see ya I suppose.
23/02/2024
Mood:Still bad
One quick addendum for the 21st. Looking at what I wrote, it may seem like I expect that if the SNP had got their way, it would have actually stopped the war. Nope, I fully recognise that the vote means jackshit and even if it was legally binding (which I believe it is not) Israel would just ignore us. The issue I had was the blatant hijacking of the situation by Labour so that they could get "Labour's Ceasefire Motion" passed instead of treating the situation with any of the seriousness it deserves.
Nothing was written for yesterday as there was nothing to say.
Today I've stalled work on Hollow (Or more accurately it's been stalled for a while) to get to work on Tsukihime - which was Type Moon's first real release afterall. No idea what to do for the mainpage but pretty settled on reusing the gallery for a way to get to character profiles and have started on Akiha. It looks like shit right now so I'm glad it's largelly inaccessible.
Don't really have much to say and that's about it.
21/02/2024
Mood:Awful
Just saw that shit that went on in Parliament - Starmer and the Speaker completely sabotaged that ceasefire vote for basically no reason whatsoever oter than a few cheap political points.
I'd always seen Starmer as someone who seemed only really marginally better than the Tories but was better nonetheless. However, after tonight's stunt, I've really lost all faith in Labour, how the hell is someone who pulls that any better than Johnson and his utter contempt for parliament? And how the hell can someone who sabotaged an attempt to end a war so he can look good - probably so he can say his own limp ceasefire plan was the only one that could have feasibly got through and look like a practial politican who was able to deliver any sort of ceasefire at all - ever serve as an effective leader when all he cares about are his approval ratings.
We are so fucked holy shit. It's either pull the enlightened socialistic tactic of refusing to vote in an election out of protest and let the right secure a victory and drive Labour further to the left to appeal to the "moderates" they think they now rely on, vote for a limp, attention-hungry Red Tories or vote for a party with no chance of winning like the Greens and hope they do something.
How the fuck are we at a position where parliament is more concerned with quelling rebellions and looking good in the press than what is basically - even if nobody officially calls it that - a genocide?
I really have nothing else to say today. This is such a gutpunch - that to be honest, I really should have seen coming from Starmer - that any lighthearted "oh and also blahblahblah" would really come out of nowhere, and I'm in too poor a mood to really think about it.
20/02/2024
Did nothing today
19/02/2024
Another quick update, and this time with basically nothing to say as I've just been lazy all day this time.
I've been trying to buy my way through the Monogatari anime, starting with Bakemonogatari. While I'll be able to buy Kizu just fine, even if they're a little expensive, Nise and Neko Black seem to be out of stock everywhere I see them, which sucks. Because I've been very legally watching the anime anyway and this is more to ensure a more permanent form of ownership it's too big of an issue if my collection ends up skipping to the second season - but it's annoying to see that for whatever reason those two are completely out of stock and seemingly no longer licensed by MVM like the rest of the series. Maybe they're planning to bring out new Blu-rays/DVDs for them or something as Bake seems to have gotten recently - judging by the design of the age rating used-, but it's annoying right now to see that some of the series is out of my hand. And even if shops like CEX get new stock, the prices used are obscene - £55 for 4 episodes?
Regarless, it's annoying.
Based on the memory of my sister's American Teen Titans Blu Ra working on our player, I might be able to buy the American copies if they're cheap enough to afford.
I think Teen Titans had a hefty import cost from memory, but I can't fully be sure just how much money was spent because it wasn't mine either way.
Mentioning that makes me remember how I read the run the show is seemingly loosely based on - the Wolfman/Perez era- back when I actually read comics. It was fairly enjoyable even if it could get a little edgy - like Starfire being sold into slavery by her sister, Slade noncing on Terra and it being played as a showing how evil she is (In fact, I remember an issue where Beast Boy asks him straight up and instead of answering Slade asks if it even matters, to which Beast Boy says "no". No idea why Beast Boy didn't care about Slade potentially grooming the girl he loved) and everything with Brother Blood. It wasn't enough to stop me from reading, and I kept going until I felt it fizzled out post-Terror of Trigon. I think I gave up on that run once Wonder Girl married Marv Wolfman's self-insert. I should borrow that show off her someday - because I think it was me always reading it and acting so smug about how I was reading serious comics for adults that made her interested in the Teen Titans in the first place. Not that she could actually read the comics, being I think 9-10 at the time.
It could have been worse, I remember showing off the sex scene in Watchmen on a school camping trip once to prove I was mature for reading comic books with mature stuff like sex and extreme violence in them. I remember someone threatened to report the book to the school as pornography before I explained it was an actual comic that just had a sex scene in it and not just porno.
Funny how my attempt to look mature and cultured probably just made me look immature and horny, huh?
I've also been looking over the Vita Port the official English version of FSN will be based on and I'm actually not looking forward to it too much right now. Even outside of correcting "Altria" back into "Artoria" it seems I'll have to wait for patches that bring back stuff like the original OP and OST, put the backgrounds into their original aspect ratio if they've been stretched out and replace them with 4:3 ones if they've been cut off at the top and bottom.
Unless FSN's English release comes with all those out of the box, it'll be a bit depressing we'll still need to patch the game after years of people refusing to play it because of all the patching you need to do currently.
Oh well, there’s always the Ultimate edition.
In other news, nothing.
Haven't made any updates to the websites as I'm waiting for the person I asked to check if it all lines up on their laptop to answer before I do any work.
18/02/2024
Quick update today as I've spent basically all of it on this site or lying around doing nothing of any value. hollow stuff still WIP but seeing some progress and - provided it looks the same on different people's monitors - I should be good to go for using up all that dead space not covered by background images.
So, yeah.
17/02/2024
Listening to: Fate/hollow ataraxia OST
Mood: Still awful
Don't have much to say for today personally as I've sat in bed trying to figure out webdesign.
Newswise I've heard about Navalny which sucks but there's really no suprise there, Putin was going to get him sooner or later.
Apparently Russia is unoffically blaming the West, which is an insane argument to make - that we were out silencing his political opponents for him despite being enemies right now. Maybe the argument is we want to make him look bad by making it seem like he'll disappear people.
Regardless, with a costly war going on, I'm sure Putin's regime will collapse in due time if it's not able to win relatively soon. It's pretty hard to claim you're a strongman leader who can stand up to the West if you lose to Ukraine, let alone a major state like the USA - so he'll lose appeal that way. And furthermore, I feel it can't be too long until things get so economically tense for the Russians they feel they have less to lose fighting Putin than sitting back out of fear. It's something that has happened to leaders time and time again - people would rather risk death fighting you than a guarenteed one starving under you. I don't think this strongarming is going to keep people inline for too long.
Still not feeling any better about that AI shit while I'm at it to be honest - I stil don't understand what generative AI has actually achieved that is of any practial use for anyone. Other types have and have been vital to stuff like massive medical breaktrhoughs, but this? All it seems able to do is cost jobs, make spreading misinfo easier, take up way too much space and pollute the planet - I wonder just how much of this is a bubble that will pop without anything proftiable to show for it other than the intial novelty of "wow, my PC can generate art/audio/photos for me" - which I'll bet'll see diminishing returns and the novelty wears off. Regardless, at least for now the only people this seems to be helping are their own shareholders and people who work for Unemployment Agencies.
My attempt at making the Type Moon tribute sites has restarted and I'm at work on some stuff for Fate/hollow ataraxia right now - starting the with the simpler stuff (Heaven's Feel Back Night) with just Avenger and Bazett before I go full-on into the day-based stuff where I have alot more characters to show off. I've decided to base the day stuff on the maps from the game and only give sort of character showcases for the characters with map sprites.
This has been sort of rambly, so I apologise, but I really don't have much to say in a concise and well-organised statement.
Oh, and thanks for the increase of hits I've seen all of sudden. I'm assuming it's because https://humanityisnotbeautiful.neocities.org/index2 followed me in respomse to me following him, but even if if you came here from just checking last updated, I'm glad to know people have bene listening to these rambles that probably contain far too many personal details.
If people are actually reading this anyway.
Edit: It seems my updates aren't showing up on my screens while I work, meaning I have no idea how often they're actually showing up. For all I know, my sites look nothing like the updates I've mafe to them. Oh well...
16/02/2024
Listening to: Nothing
Mood: We're so fucked,.gif)
Heard about that AI able to create photorealistic video. Combine that with the ones able to create such great audio and we really will have trully entered the "Post Truth Era". Not only will we be all arguing about "alternative facts", we'll have "alternative evidence" to present too. It'll make that AI audio of Sadiq Khan that caused panic amongst right wingers look like a joke. We won't be able to trust anything we see anywhere at this rate unless we see it IRL. (Although, we've already seen how you can use projecters to make something look realistic and if you combine that with the AI...)
Worst part is, there is literally nothing I can think about doing about it. Have the government take control and regulate it and watch them abuse it to stay in power and pursue the "national" (governmental) interest. Leave it in the hands of Companies and watch them do the exact same thing for profits. News companies? We all know they have their own agendas and will distort facts to get there - watch the Sun suddenly have more and more evidence for whatever their panic of the week is. UN? Fat chance. Create technology to detect AI and watch them find ways to work around it and supplant it. It will just be an arms war of AI checkers and AI generators ever-expanding.
Very soon, the News will be useless. We won't be able to prove or disprove anything, or know anything about current events at all.
Between this and Climate Change it seems the capitalists and their researchers really have gone and fucked us all, just more irrversibly than any socialist I know of seems to have predicted.
Maybe I shouldn't be so pessimstic so immediately after it was revealed, but what the fuck can anyone actually do? I mean, it's not like we can just undevelop AI or anything.
Maybe the Houthi cutting down all the internet cables wouldn't be so bad considering it's all online right now as far as I know.
On an unrelated note, for the first time ever, I felt kind of lonely Valentine's Day. If I wasn't so ugly... I'd still have no idea where to even find the type of guys I like and have no idea how to flirt with them anyway.
15/02/2024
Listening to: The people next store's awful taste in music.
Mood: Bad
I hate how thin the walls seem to be in this flat.
I was going to watch Azumanga Diaoh, but knowing that I'm going to have their shitty music playing over it has made me decide to wait for tommorrow.
14/02/2024
Listening to: Nothing
Mood: Meh
I don't really have anything to say today, a coworker I just met last week left today, I suppose.
All I did in uni was a seminar about what I did yesterday - and that was about it.
I'm too tired for reading, so I'll do it tommorrow.
That's about it, I suppose
13/02/2024
Listening to: Nothing
Mood: Pessimistic
Our lecture today for Global Political Economy was just watching a documentary about corporations. Pretty depressing flim, as "people power"-y as it got at the end. With all sorts of dangerous technology or chemicals being used purely because of the profit incentive, with genes in the human body being patented, with such poor working conditions globally, with the brainwashing of advertisment and control of the news so nobody knows or cares; I feel quite pessimistic about the future of the human race.
Between the whole exploitation of workers thing and the extremity of climate change, it seems that we're all doomed if we don't get rid of, at least large, MNCs if not all private industry whatsoever. If we don't all die of shit working conditions and whatever the hell they've put in our food, we'll all die of heatstroke or drowning when climate change comes a knockin'. Of course, it will be those in Third World Nations who suffer most, so maybe as a First Worlder I should shut my gob about the whole thing, but I like complaining so I won't.
The issue of course is the Multinational part - it doesn't matter if one nation nationalises or regulates their corporations when they can just move to other nations because of the whole globalisation thing and keep on exploiting and polluting over there.
Seems there is little any one nation can do. Maybe we need to see groups like the UN put their foot down or a big nation like the USA or China "convince" people to sign up to some treaties or agreements that would harshly regulate, nationalise or break up these massive MNCs - ignoring the whole Worldwide Socialist Revolution thing because there's no way that's ever coming quick enough- if it all. Even if there's next to no chance that either the USA or China would ever be against free-market capitalism Socialism with Chinese Characteristics any time soon, a crisis might force them to act. But I'm sure in such a case, nations would decry "foreign interference!" or "The UN is overstepping their bounds!" and nothing would get done.
Maybe those sustainable development types will win out once Green Energy Companies use the fact they'll become a key weapon against Climate Change and start outgrowing the ucrrent giants. But I doubt that.
Oh well.
In other news, I'm working on a new About Me.
12/02/2024
Listening to: Nothing
Mood: Decent
My sleep schedule - at least based on when I woke up and went to sleep last night- seems somewhat back to normal.
In terms of what I have to say about today, once again I find myself with little to say. On a personal level, I am somewhat concerned it's been about 20 or so days since I handed two of my assetments in but haven't got either back, have finished volume 1 of Owarimonogatari, and feel really depressed for Sodachi and that I have a DVD of the Barbie Movie but no box for it, because the people who lent me my player (my parents) left it in, oops.
I'm also trying to plan my days better to ensure better sleep, for example I'm going to stop doing any big excerise post-7 (19), stop eating anything too big post-7 too and doing nothing on a screen post-10. That gives me about 2 1/2 hours to use up screens, which I should really be spending watching Azumanga Diaoh instead of these useless updates.
It might be a little excessive, but hopefully it will let me sleep better.
In terms of political stuff, I don't have much to say. The discussions today have all been about democratic backsliding/consilidation and so on and so forth, something that I've always had the opinion of that it was the fault of poor economics that drives democratic backsliding primarily - based off the few examples I had (UK and US post-2016) through radicalising voters who vote in more extreme parties, who then go on and make the parties themselves more extreme. That idea of course came up, as did the idea that the same thing happens in reverse to autocracies, although there are massive outliers like China. The fact that there are outliers has lead people to come up with all sort of ideas for mitigating factors like cultural reasons, the role of elites, etc - but I think it might be to do with the fact that democracy is an essentially contested subject. As it is something that doesn't exist outside of societies, it isn't a cleanly definable concept like a lot of natural ones, and even if it were; the positive correlation it seems loaded with makes it - like something like socialism but in the reverse - something people will define in a way that makes their desired system conform to it.
So yeah. That's about it.
Other than that, I've learnt too much about twitch streamers' hentai tastes for my liking in the last couple of days. And also the hypocrasy of a lot of Pro-Vaush (Vaushite?) anti-lolicons bending over backwards to explain how a drawing of a child in explicit positions doesn't count as CP when it's their favourite twitch streamer nutting to it.
11/02/2024
Don't have much to say for today as I spent 90% of it asleep, but I learnt it was harder than I thought to cut your own hair with a pair of scissors. Although, that might have been because they were meant for cutting thread and made for people with the opposite dominant hand.
10/02/2024
Mood: Extremly Tired
To be honest, I didn't think I'd update today, but it seems my inability to get to sleep has given me time to write a little update.
My dad is over for the weekend, and some stuff has happened. He gave me some stuff I realy should have brought mysef like a beard trimming kit and some hairbands for my out of control... well, hair; in addition to the new Higurashi Manga.
Other than that, not much happened other than personal stuff with my Dad, so some shopping, some idle chatter about how we need Land Value Tax to deal with our land issues in the country, Starmer's weird Ninja thing, etc.
We went out into town - about an hour away - at 6:00 and came back at 8:00. Apparently, it seems eating a big meal like that in between two hours of walking isn;t actually good for your sleep schedule for some reason, and I'm only just starting to get tired at almost 2am in the Morning. The issue, of course, is he booked a breakfast fairly early that I don't want to miss, so if I go to sleep now I'll miss it.
Seems I need a better, as in more rigourous schedule, as this type of difficulty sleeping happens often, to be honest. Apparently I need to read an hour before bed, not eat anything big or do any excerise for two hours beforehand, etc.
I'll try to stick to that from tommorrow, but no promises.
And I doubt a sleepless night will do any good for my sleep patterns.
Oh well.
08/02/2024 and 09/02/2024
Mood: Tired
Listening to: My awfully loud flatmates
I don't have anything to say for yesterday or today really.
I guess, I could say that I hate how loud my fucking flatmates are.
07/02/2024
Mood: OK
Listening to: Les Mis Original London Cast
I don't have anything to say today.
Me and some co-volunteer at Oxfam talked about transliteration or something, IDK.
06/02/2024
Mood: OK
Listening to: Nothing
Out of boredom today, I decided to do some looking around on the internet to see the discourse of leftists (specifically non-capitalist ones) online. Interestingly, I found someone else on Tumblr had mentioned something that I have always thought about the more hardcore leftwingers out there. That they basically are a doomsday cult.
I’d like to note this is not referring to any mainstream left-wing figures - as far as I am aware - but to a specific subsection of hardline communists who seem to scoff at any change that could help the working class other than revolution.
The user themselves compared them to Christians but I’m going to go more general here and focus on my claim that they are often a doomsday cult by singling on one particular aspect: the idea that you can’t actually make any sort of progress in a capitalist system.
This is evident in their hatred of Social Democrats and other left-wing groups that do not wish for the total elimination of capitalism - calling them fascists. This is reminiscent to a degree of the utterly insane focus the Communist Party of Germany had on dismantling the Social Democrats, believing them a greater fascist threat than Hitler.
To these individuals the revolution is the be-all and end-all, the revolution - and socialism/communism/anarchism, in general, is no longer a means to an end - to improve the lot of the working class or society as a whole or whatever, but instead often seems to be spoken off as an end in and of itself, with any solution to the issues they see under capitalism that does not altogether demolish the system being seen as bad. It is not enough to try and make progress for people, to see them suffer less under a system you despise, in fact, it is downright horrendous - after all, if they feel more content under capitalism, they might not have their glorious revolution - which is of course more important than their material conditions, right? Only a fucking liberal would ever try and improve the conditions of the working class, real socialists do nothing until the revolution magics itself out of thin air.
You often see this “communism or bust” attitude in action from extreme left-wingers (in the terms that most people are more centrist/right than them) when it comes to dealing with electoral politics. When the political parties chase after the centre/popular consensus and we end up with two similar parties with a few nonetheless hotly debated topics like - to use a US example as the anglophone internet is majority American - abortion or access to free healthcare, these leftists swear off electoral democracy altogether, who cares who wins when economic policy is so similar? Issues like abortion, minority rights and affirmative action (if indeed these leftists like something like affirmative action) are, if only slightly, preferred by the left-wing party over the right. But, because they are not communism, the online leftist often seems not only not to care but to disparage whoever does as a liberal - which is basically a conservative - which is basically a fascist. And then they wonder why they do not make gains in electoral democracies and why they fail at pushing left-wing parties away from capitalism.
Because of all this, the real hardworking leftist praxis is to sit on your ass - to mock elections as a false choice between the same thing, protests as futile endeavours the elite will just coopt anyway, strikes as something that’ll just get broken up, participating in official democracy via other methods such as petitions or contacting local representatives. Afterall, nothing changes and the left never makes any real gains, so you just need to keep waiting for that revolution.
I don’t know where to end this, and I understand this is me bitching about a very small part of an itself fringe political movement that I am not a part of. Not only that, but they have no real power, they actively refuse to have any. But it is always something that annoys me, to see people who didn’t even try complain that there’s no point in trying.
Why do these people think that liberalism, social democracy and conservatism have made gains in electoral democracies - to the point that most pluralistic democracies will have these three as their largest parties - while socialists flounder - because they know how to compromise, they can galvanise active support, they appeal to the beliefs of the general populace, these are all reasons, but I would argue that their biggest reason why is that they have reasonable goals they wish to achieve instead of the great apocalypse that will wipe out all sin the glorious revolution - and they don’t actively shame people as “revisionist” or “liberal” (especially because if you’re a liberal it would be weird to use it as an insult) for trying to make gains other than the complete creation of their desired end-state.
Thank you for reading, if anyone actually visits this site other than me making updates, this rambling diatribe of mine, I’d ask you to say if you agree or disagree with my evidence-less characterisation of this subsection of insane people within the socialist movement but there is nowhere on this site to do so.
Maybe I should add comments,
The Dumbfuck.
05/02/2024
Today in my classes, we had a lecture on democracy in comparative politics - how to operationalise concepts like that, that sort of thing.
One thing I found incredibly interesting was that at the start of the lecture, we were told to rank nations by how democratic they were. The following nations were ranked: The UK, USA, Costa Rica and Russia and the order was as followed:
- The UKA
- The USA
- Costa Rica
- Russia
I myself ranked them as following:
- Costa Rica
- The USA
- The UK
- Russia
At the end, it seems that the correct order would be:
- Costa Rica
- The UK
- The USA
- Russia
I felt the fact that the UK found itself on the top at the start of the list incredibly surprising, considering the class had previously heavily seemed to define democracy by elections. Afterall, the Federal Structure of the USA leads to frequent elections on almost all levels of government as well as the fact that two out of the three of the branches of their federal government (the executive and the legislature) are elected.
In contrast, the UK has a unitary state, meaning local elections are less important, and only the legislature is elected in our government - with the executive instead being picked from within it. These two facts alone really made me feel that the USA - however poor their democracy was - was a better democracy than us.
It is, however, true that the government is restricted in action by the unelected supreme court, and so Costa Rica, of which I know little about the judiciary, was placed above as a rough guess (based on how the USA’s constitution and judiciary are often touted as international outliers).
The fact that the UK was placed on top in the class polling was interesting - without data about how people I think I can only guess for the reasons used
It was also interesting to see that the UK was more democratic than the USA despite elections being more infrequent and us having less democratic control over the executive branch. To be fair, this was a liberal democracy measure - so maybe we have stronger human rights (doubtful because the Human Rights Act could be revoked at any time, unlike in the USA), more checks and balances (even if we had some instead of the lack of any real ones we have I doubt it could measure up to the USA’s famous set of them like separation of powers and the bill of rights) or more positive rights (the most likely option considering how rights in the USA are almost exclusively seen as negative from the looks of things).
04/02/2024 - Addition
Listening to: Nothing
Mood: Worried about my sleep schedule
Remember when I said I didn't want to turn this into a diary? Here I am no more than a couple of days later, doing another daily update. At this point, it looks like it really is going to be my anonymous digital diary.
I've had an uneventful day reading through almost all of the first volume of the English relase of Koyomimonogatari, so I really don't have much to say other than so far the Final Season's been pretty boring - hopefully Owarimonogatari and Zoku Owarimonogatari make up for the disappointing first two (going by japanese voluming here) volumes.
In terms of this website I'm planning on creating a section called "Old Dark House", where I can talk about old Universal Horror movies, and in fact a page for it is up but inaccessable due to no links to it on the rest of the site. Right now all that exists is an introduction to Universal Horror, without any real decoration to the page whatsoever. If I can figure out more css, I'd like to theme it all around the interior of a haunted house but I suck at all that.
I've also downloaded a bunch of pictures from Fate/Stay Night and Hollow Ataraxia for my Saber page, I'll need to go through the illustrations from Fate/Zero to be complete.
Here's a shitty gif I made from her overworld card from Hollow Ataraxia.
.gif)
Also, I never did end up watching Azumanga Diaoh yesterday.
Signing of,
I've just realised I don't have a pseudonym to use on this website, I guess I'll stick with Dumbfuck for now.
>03/02/2024 - Addition
Listening to:Same as Before
Mood: better.
Website randomly had a lot of extra blank space off to the side despite me not changing anything. Either PC gremlins were messing with me, or my wifi sucks and the changes took a while to be sent out or something. Considering I just got a zero notifications but the notification sound went off, it might be a wifi issue.
>03/02/2024
Listening to: The 1990 Paris Revival Cast of Les Misérables off some bootleg recording
Mood: Tired, I spent too much time attempting to code last night
Due to a pretty bad fuckup on my part, I've broken the main page - which linked to here -, meaning if you're reading this right now, no you're not.
After my last update, nothing much has happened in my life because it's just been one more day. I suppose I have experimented some more with HTML and CSS to no avail (hence the broken main page, lol). Writing here is just to a: have something to do while I try to repair the main page, b: to test if new entries will appear above old ones if I edit them right, c: To see if this layout will work for a blog style type of thing, d: For fun I suppose.
I really don't have much to write about, with it being so soon after the last update, and unless I make this a full-on diary, I probably won't update so often in the future - this is more to spend time on anything other than fixing my main page. Although some sort of digital diary does sound fun.
In addition to the main page, I've decided on making a character shrine for Saber, and will probably do one for my beloved Kaiki. In terms of what this will actually entail, I have no idea - but I made this pretty shitty sticker for her I suppose.
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I also spent way too much time trying to get this gif:
To work.
In terms of what I was trying to do when I broke the main page, I was trying to turn it into this:
When my downloading of some templates in order to figure out what did what by reverse engineering of them lead me to accidentally replace my entire index with a new one that looked nothing like I wanted. I'll probably take a break after this, eat some lunch, watch some Azumanga Diaoh and then make a barely functional version of the main page before doing my reading for Monday.
See you later, Aligator,
The Dumbfuck.
Edit: Just fixed it
>02/02/2024
This is the first ever entry into my blog - and my first update to this piece of shit website in over a year.
Oops.
But, even though I feel like making some sort of general Type Moon fansite is a waste of effort on my part considering how little power to catalogue stuff I have as just a person who can't speak Japanese, I've decided I'm going to try and remake it into a site where I write up shitty opinion pieces about TM stuff and whatever the else I want to talk about. I'll probably (incredibly slowly as I'm still at Uni) try and update the older stuff in a way that somewhat measures up to my original idea for the site but I make no promises. Sorry to my one follower, I guess. Haha.
Right now, I've had a pretty boring week for my first week back. Largely just a bunch of introductory lectures and seminars that spend a lot of time on stuff I've already read in the module guide. Not that I'm going to complain - I don't think I'd enjoy going right back into full-on stuff one week in, and you've got to start somewhere. Besides, unlike some people I'm bourgeois enough that I didn't need a student loan to get here, so a lot of people in this uni have much more reason to complain than me. I'm pretty privileged all things considered.
Although, to a degree, it seems that universities as a whole are pretty middle-class institutions. And apparently don't actually lead to too much of a difference in terms of how much you end up making at your job - despite what my secondary school told me. But that’s neither here nor there.
Considering the Grammar School system is something that only really exists in a few areas in the UK nowadays, it seems that to a degree many people in this country simply don't have schools good enough to get grades good enough to university. The people at university - as screwed over as they may be by student loans - are still a privileged minority in this country.
Which actually brings up something I really hate about what I would call mainstream Anglophone economics (if we consider paying for the service of higher education an economics issue) discourse - the focus on the middle class/reasonably well-off. Complaints about tuition fees and being forced to rent are of course real issues that massively negatively affect many people in this country, but at least they give you higher education and a roof over your head. In a country of 67 million, that only around 448,000 people are getting university places is a pretty big issue. This obviously can be linked to loans scaring people away, I don't think it's a coincidence that the North - largely economically left behind by the government - is seeing the number falling rather than rising like the rest of the country.
In terms of homelessness, numbers are tricky, as the government insists the numbers are in the 20,000s while independent research can put it in the 270,000s. Regardless, while it is true this is also a problem for a minority of people either way, it is a problem for the specific minority of "The Worst Off". It continuously boggles my mind to see reasonably economically well-educated decently well-off people in this country complain rightly about the issues they face and complain about the government screwing them over and leaving them behind when there are people living without a home.
As I've continuously stated, I obviously still acknowledge they face real issues, and many of them probably are worse off than me, but when dealing with inequalities and government failures, it seems obvious to me that we need to focus on the worst off - to deal with the people who can't even make it to university before we deal with those who are saddled with debt they'll never pay off and to deal with homelessness. That we haven't I feel speaks to what I would hesitantly call an entitlement by the reasonably well-off in this nation that they are the focus of discussion.
Outside of this Middle-Class economics discourse hegemony, I should talk about the stuff I actually have learnt in Uni. Well - one thing I've learnt is just how hard it is to define the concept of security widely enough to reflect popular usage while remaining usable. To simplify this to prevent going around in circles, I'm going to come to the conclusion my Seminar discussion group did about a basic definition of security - borrowed from the reading (“The Concept of Security” by Baldwin), that it's about the prevention/ mitigation of serious threats to the acquired values of whatever the referent objects are. The issue here is how this becomes usable. Even if we assume the state is the referent object, almost anything could be considered a threat to the acquired values of the state depending on what you believe they are. I have tried to simplify it to the key acquired values being those of survival and autonomy but this still remains contextual. The group (at least most of us) decided that using Marginal Utility works as a selecting mechanism to adjust for context - ie; that security is conflicting with other matters over funding and states will spend based on expected (diminishing returns). I still don't know if this is enough
On a lighter note, there was a funny moment in an economics-related module I took, where nobody - including the actual economics student - could explain supply and demand curves.
Away from my baseless political observations and on to anime.
I've been reading Tsukimonogatari and it really shows just how bad the Monogatari series is at pacing.
SPOILERS (duh)
My god, is it awful. We spend like 80 or so pages with Araragi's almost incest with his sisters in the bath before the inciting incident happens, the bulk of the book is then exposition before action rises over halfway through with a kidnapping that they very quickly figure out and go to confront the kidnapper, by which point the book is basically over. The villain barely gets a chapter before being quickly killed off - and no answers are really given to any of the questions raised by the book. It really does feel like this book only exists to hype up Owarimonogatari and so it really does not stand on its own as a book.
The poor pacing where most of the book deals with SoL and snappy conversations between Araragi and his friends while the actual plot makes up the minority, however, is pretty representative of every book in the series save Bake though.
Yet another reason why this series is so hard to recommend, I suppose.
Oh yeah, and the Fate/Stay Night VN is finally getting an official translation. It should say something about just how bad Aniplex's translations are that pretty much everyone I've talked to about it has basically preemptively shat on it for inevitably containing TL errors. That and "Altria".
TL;DR: I have shit opinions about politics and anime