A Wild Lurker Appears! Hyoi's Random Banter #232

[Lord Raziere]

As far as Darkness(tm) goes, darkness is more of a tone than any sequence of events. The Star Wars universe is objectively a pretty grim and terrifying place, at least during the OT, but i wouldnt say any of the works get particularly dark. ESB is easily the closest, but it still ends on an optimistic note.

Yeah pretty much, Star Wars isn't dark despite how its set up, because its all presented and told in a way that everything ends up fine in the end. people in these discussions are sometimes too focused on coming up with alternative interpretations that really are just taking away vital parts of what makes a story work. to say that Star Wars is dark is to ignore all the good Luke, the Jedi and the Rebel Alliance do, to say Kingdom Hearts is dark is to ignore all the work that is done to get rid of the darkness and how the protagonists react in the face of it, how the ending plays it out.

otherwise you can technically say anything is dark as long as it has some form of suffering in it, and the only light story you can tell is a slice of life one.

...I'm wondering if this is a situation like the very first Treehouse of Horror special.

Unlike most Simpsons Halloween specials, the first one had a proper framing device of the kids in the treehouse on Halloween telling ghost stories, meanwhile, Homer is sitting outside listening to them in secret. After being dissatisfied with Bart's attempt at horror stories, Lisa recites Poe's The Raven..

Once it's over, BAt dismisses it as not being particularly frightening and he and Lisa have a brief discussion about how standards of what is "scary" change over time... Cut to Homer in bed that night unable to sleep because the story chilled him to the bone.

The story hit him differently than it hit the children, so it had a profound effect on him.

I'm wondering if the story of Kingdom Hearts is just hitting me differently...

Or maybe I'm not explaining it right.

I mean probably hits different?

I know how Disney stories work, they're not hard to figure out and once you know how a story works some of the effect it has on you fades. It becomes something your not shocked or stimulated by but something you recognize and put into a category.

especially when you've seen a bunch of other things that are darker than anything Kingdom Hearts could ever do.

also this is just your interpretation of KH, and you could've formed it from overthinking it and intentionally reexamining it to suit whatever narrative you like after the fact, and you initial impression was probably not "oh this is so dark and scary" when playing it/after playing it. TFS may not be a good way to experience Kingdom Hearts, but they are good way to observe how someone can invent an entirely new narrative out of events from intentional alternative interpretation and headcanons. whose to say your not doing the same thing as they are, just less comedically?

[Rater202]

Actually, my initial thoughts were "being a Nobody wouldn't be so bad" because I played the games out of order and I was in my edgy teen phase at the time.

"I wouldn't feel so sad or angry all of the time and I'd have elemental powers and a cool elaborate weapon" because original position fallacy, I just assumed out of hand that I'd be strong-willed enough to keep human form.

The cosmic horror elements of the story and the dark/existential implications didn't really sink in until I'd spent a lot of time examining it and talking it over with other fans.

[2D8HP]

Congrats on not having cancer! That's always good news. As for the rest...well, I hope everything works out.

Thanks Peelee!

As for the rest?

Yeah, I don't know what would be best, I really don't.

I do think that I'm gonna buy the Triumph as well as I don't want to wait for the Norton to be sorted to ride again, and (in part) I'm not seeing any place to store one bike that won't also store two, so yes I'll have a loaner bike to lend visitors after the Norton is roadworthy.

[Tvtyrant]

As far as Darkness(tm) goes, darkness is more of a tone than any sequence of events. The Star Wars universe is objectively a pretty grim and terrifying place, at least during the OT, but i wouldnt say any of the works get particularly dark. ESB is easily the closest, but it still ends on an optimistic note.

The original series is very in line with kingdom hearts. Personal relations are hammy melodramas, the background genocides and murders are sparkly and glossed over. Luke sees his parents butchered corpses and gets over it in a scene, mopes about his wizard uncle for an additional scene, Leia cries for a few seconds about Alderran.

This is why they are fun romps and not super deep or fulfilling. I don't want to see Luke or Sora enforce tax policies, or see a civil war about undercutting space aluminum prices in the metal cartel.

[Anonymouswizard]

Back to game writing, and what do we do when we've got a dead end in a project or two? See if there's any ideas you want to keep and start a new project!

And urgh, the hardest part about class systems is coming up with archetypes, even if the class only determines half their starting skills, their starting equipment, and one ability (I'm not even sure I want to go down the Talent route this time, I kind of like each character omit hazing one ability). I've got the basic four done, and I'm sure I'll come up with another couple tomorrow, but I need at least a few more for character variety.

Somewhat annoyingly starting characters are pretty immune to light pistols, so exploding dice got added just so they have a chance to do some damage. I'm sure I'll come up with a more elegant way to do it later, maybe drop character Toughness slightly so each stage of armour is one level lower. It's definitely something I need to sleep on, but it's still a little bit easy for a baseline human to become practically immune to light pistol shots.

[Rater202]

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I figure that anyone who hunts any kind of animal primarily for sport shouldn't be using anything more advanced than a sharp rock on a stick.

If it's a sport, you need to be sporting, and that involves giving the animal a fair chance, savvy?

If you're hunting because a buck or two would really stretch out your meat budget this winter, then yeah, go ahead, do what you've gotta do, but if you're only after the trophy, you'd better earn that damn trophy.

This also does not apply in the case of population hunting or removing an invasive species from the area. In that case, it's not about the hunter or the individual animal, it's a matter of ecological balance.

[Keltest]

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I figure that anyone who hunts any kind of animal primarily for sport shouldn't be using anything more advanced than a sharp rock on a stick.

If it's a sport, you need to be sporting, and that involves giving the animal a fair chance, savvy?

If you're hunting because a buck or two would really stretch out your meat budget this winter, then yeah, go ahead, do what you've gotta do, but if you're only after the trophy, you'd better earn that damn trophy.

This also does not apply in the case of population hunting or removing an invasive species from the area. In that case, it's not about the hunter or the individual animal, it's a matter of ecological balance.

There's a certain amount of practicality involved. For one, stabbing an animal with a spear over and over again is an exceptionally cruel way to kill it when cleaner and faster methods are available. For another, many prey animals have some form of self defense that a spear won't adequately compensate for, whether speed or weaponry or size. So you're opening up yourself to great personal risk, especially if you're hunting, like, a bear or something.

[LaZodiac]

So you're opening up yourself to great personal risk, especially if you're hunting, like, a bear or something.

Correct!

That's the point he's making. If you're gonna hunt for sport, it should be sporting. The animal should be able to kill you.

[Tvtyrant]

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I figure that anyone who hunts any kind of animal primarily for sport shouldn't be using anything more advanced than a sharp rock on a stick.

If it's a sport, you need to be sporting, and that involves giving the animal a fair chance, savvy?

If you're hunting because a buck or two would really stretch out your meat budget this winter, then yeah, go ahead, do what you've gotta do, but if you're only after the trophy, you'd better earn that damn trophy.

This also does not apply in the case of population hunting or removing an invasive species from the area. In that case, it's not about the hunter or the individual animal, it's a matter of ecological balance.

By that logic I imagine you should only be allowed to cast fist, so the animal can win if it tries hard enough.

Most hunters I know do it for largely traditional/spiritual reasons. It's more about feeling a connection with their Dad/Uncle/Grandpa and through them back the big chain o humans then it is anything to do with sports or food. Sitting around your families' 50,000th campfire or showing where the knife goes in to your kid as you were shown. Like any tradition it only appeals to a subset of each generation, and then it is lost to the descendants of the other branches as it isn't tradition to them but a hobby other people do.

The best description of that feeling is actually from a Terry Pratchett book about introducing soccer (or Hogsfather, they touch on similar themes.)

[LaZodiac]

By that logic I imagine you should only be allowed to cast fist, so the animal can win if it tries hard enough.

Most hunters I know do it for largely traditional/spiritual reasons. It's more about feeling a connection with their Dad/Uncle/Grandpa and through them back the big chain o humans then it is anything to do with sports or food. Sitting around your families' 50,000th campfire or showing where the knife goes in to your kid as you were shown. Like any tradition it only appeals to a subset of each generation, and then it is lost to the descendants of the other branches as it isn't tradition to them but a hobby other people do.

The best description of that feeling is actually from a Terry Pratchett book about introducing soccer (or Hogsfather, they touch on similar themes.)

That's a really good point but that's not the type of hunter Rater is talking about.

He's talking about the dentist who has decided that animal would look nicer in his bedroom.

[Keltest]

That's a really good point but that's not the type of hunter Rater is talking about.

He's talking about the dentist who has decided that animal would look nicer in his bedroom.

Not sure how forcing a human to give up his evolutionary advantages is any more sporting. We are apex predators for a reason, after all.

[Tvtyrant]

That's a really good point but that's not the type of hunter Rater is talking about.

He's talking about the dentist who has decided that animal would look nicer in his bedroom.

Yeah but what was the dentists childhood like? I'm a stockbroker from hillbilly stock on both sides, I remember my grandfather crying when the smelt stopped running when I was a kid and the endless trips to the same patch of woods where the deer don't go anymore because his father took him hunting there.

That's where we really bury people. For instance my grandpa took my brother and I ocean fishing out of Gharibaldi every August our entire lives. We will probably be making that same trip until we pass away, even if the fishing dried up and the town faded away. I'm not saying the dentist isn't just killing animals, but it is hard to know the reason.

[Rater202]

That's a really good point but that's not the type of hunter Rater is talking about.

He's talking about the dentist who has decided that animal would look nicer in his bedroom.

Exactly.

I'm talking about the Rich asshat who goes to a fenced-off game preserve, covers himself with a special kind of deodorant that covers up his human smell enough that the animal can't smell him, and sits in a camouflaged street stand that surrounded by a noise machine that creates the sound of bucks fighting for mates, a food dispenser, a machine that dispenses doe-in-heat urine, and a realistic decoy of a doe in the mating position and waits for an animal to come to him so he can shoot it with his laser-sighted, telescopic scoped fricking sniper rifle and then doesn't even eat the meat.

Going out with grandpas old shotgun because your family has been hunting deer this way for generations and you're craving venison is one thing, but...

If you only killed the animal for the trophy, then it should b a fair fight. The animal should have the chance to get away from you and a chance to fight back if you screw up and let it see you.

the point of a trophy is to impress people. Ain't nothing impressive about the animal coming to you when it has no idea you're there and no possible way to fight back or escape.

[Peelee]

Probably an unpopular opinion, but I figure that anyone who hunts any kind of animal primarily for sport shouldn't be using anything more advanced than a sharp rock on a stick.

If it's a sport, you need to be sporting, and that involves giving the animal a fair chance, savvy?

If you're hunting because a buck or two would really stretch out your meat budget this winter, then yeah, go ahead, do what you've gotta do, but if you're only after the trophy, you'd better earn that damn trophy.

This also does not apply in the case of population hunting or removing an invasive species from the area. In that case, it's not about the hunter or the individual animal, it's a matter of ecological balance.

I agree with the sentiment, if not the mechanism. Modern day hunting isn't hunting. It's camping with guns. Hunters should hunt. Track their quarry. Put in the work. Not just hide out in a camouflaged blind and drink beer until something wanders into view.

[Rater202]

I agree with the sentiment, if not the mechanism. Modern day hunting isn't hunting. It's camping with guns. Hunters should hunt. Track their quarry. Put in the work. Not just hide out in a camouflaged blind and drink beer until something wanders into view.

YEah.

If you wanna hang out in the woods and get drunk with your buddies... You probably shouldn't have guns.

I don't know if most hunting accidents happen because someone was playing with a gun while drunk, but I imagine that it's not an insignificant percentage.

[LaZodiac]

Not sure how forcing a human to give up his evolutionary advantages is any more sporting. We are apex predators for a reason, after all.

I'll be honest I don't know if humans count as apex predators. Sure, we don't have creature actively hunting humans for prey, but when we're out in the wilderness a LOT of things will decide we're fair game, by accident or otherwise. A true Apex Predator can go through an area with little more than a grunt of acknowledgement.

Basically, while our technology allows us greater protection against things that would eat us, naturally they would try to and can succeed at eating us, which means we're not at the Apex. This basically makes us a great white shark; very strong, strong enough to play the part, but just as fragile as any other species that has something that can and will just beat the **** out of it.

(also we're not apex predators by scientific classification; we don't exclusively eat meat. If anything I'd say we're a keystone species, because a single hiccup from us can **** the entire environment)

Yeah but what was the dentists childhood like? I'm a stockbroker from hillbilly stock on both sides, I remember my grandfather crying when the smelt stopped running when I was a kid and the endless trips to the same patch of woods where the deer don't go anymore because his father took him hunting there.

That's where we really bury people. For instance my grandpa took my brother and I ocean fishing out of Gharibaldi every August our entire lives. We will probably be making that same trip until we pass away, even if the fishing dried up and the town faded away. I'm not saying the dentist isn't just killing animals, but it is hard to know the reason.

Fishing is not hunting, and note that you're using a rod and tackle for that, not a shot gun and some dynamite. When Rater says "rich hunters are just animal abusers, they should be forced to hunt by hand and fist" he is not talking about you and your family having a pleasant time fishing up smelt.

[Rater202]

When Rater says "rich hunters are just animal abusers, they should be forced to hunt by hand and fist" he is not talking about you and your family having a pleasant time fishing up smelt.

Actually, I'm not saying that they're abusers.

I'm saying that there's nothing sporting about killing an animal that doesn't know you're there and has no chance of escape or self-defense. There's no honor in it, no glory in it, and it's not particularly impressive.

Animals kill and eat other animals and humans are animals. As long as you're doing it legally and putting the animal down clearly tha'ts not abuse. With something like a game animal shooting it is probably more merciful than if some other predator got it.

But if you're killing an animal to get a trophy to impress people with... You better have done something impressive to ern it.

[LaZodiac]

Actually, I'm not saying that they're abusers.

I'm saying that there's nothing sporting about killing an animal that doesn't know you're there and has no chance of escape or self-defense. There's no honor in it, no glory in it, and it's not particularly impressive.

In my defense I'm very tired, so I phrased that in a way that amused me and wasn't entirely accurate.

[enderlord99]

(also we're not apex predators by scientific classification; we don't exclusively eat meat.

Bears are also omnivorous, but I'm pretty sure they're considered apex predators.

[LaZodiac]

Bears are also omnivorous, but I'm pretty sure they're considered apex predators.

Almost every animal is capable of eating things other than their base assigned food. Bears eat enough meat to count as apex predators, even accounting for their other stuff.

A quick check shows that this is actually wrong and as such bears are generally not apex predators. Black Bears are lower on the food chain than some predators, and Grizzlies primarily eat fish.

[Peelee]

I'll be honest I don't know if humans count as apex predators. Sure, we don't have creature actively hunting humans for prey, but when we're out in the wilderness a LOT of things will decide we're fair game, by accident or otherwise. A true Apex Predator can go through an area with little more than a grunt of acknowledgement.

Basically, while our technology allows us greater protection against things that would eat us, naturally they would try to and can succeed at eating us, which means we're not at the Apex. This basically makes us a great white shark; very strong, strong enough to play the part, but just as fragile as any other species that has something that can and will just beat the **** out of it.

Except we are apex predators. We didn't start out with technology. We started out with nothing, and we fought and clawed our way to the top. We are the apex predator.

Any apex predator cases to be an apex predator if you introduce them into another environment with another apex predator that's bigger and badder than the first one. A tiger is an apex predator in the jungle but they wander into a lagoon and a shark can take it down. Heck, domestic cats are apex predators in residential neighborhoods. Apex predator is defined by environment. And we control the environment. We can introduce guns or tools or technology or spears or even slings with pebbles to gain the advantage. There is no true apex predator but us.

[Rater202]

Humanlike intelligence is an evolutionary singularity: A development that fundamentally changes the rules of the game.

While our large, complex brains are a massive resource hog, it is highly unlikely that we will ever adapt in a way that robs us of our sapience simply because there will never be a time when sapience stops being beneficial.

A bird might lose its ability to fly if all of its predators live above the treeline and all its prey live below the ground, but a human with proper motivation can build a shovel to dig up prey and a sling/bow/blowgun to kill or drive off flying predators.

[Keltest]

Except we are apex predators. We didn't start out with technology. We started out with nothing, and we fought and clawed our way to the top. We are the apex predator.

Any apex predator cases to be an apex predator if you introduce them into another environment with another apex predator that's bigger and badder than the first one. A tiger is an apex predator in the jungle but they wander into a lagoon and a shark can take it down. Heck, domestic cats are apex predators in residential neighborhoods. Apex predator is defined by environment. And we control the environment. We can introduce guns or tools or technology or spears or even slings with pebbles to gain the advantage. There is no true apex predator but us.

Even beyond that, if you took a bear in its own environment and ripped out its teeth and its claws, and shaved off all its fur, no kidding its going to struggle to have any chance of hunting. Thats not giving its prey a "sporting" chance, thats just making things pointlessly difficult for the bear.


I do agree that sitting in a stand waiting for something to wander into the sights of your Kill-O-Matic Death Rifle isnt a sport in any useful sense of the word, but we have long since passed the point where getting any particular prey killed is anything other than a question of how long its going to take anyway. If youre just interested in the trophy rather than the actual activity of the hunt, at least do the animal the favor of making it a quick and clean kill instead of, say, missing and having them wander around with a bullet wound bleeding out for an hour and generally suffering.

[Rater202]

Even beyond that, if you took a bear in its own environment and ripped out its teeth and its claws, and shaved off all its fur, no kidding its going to struggle to have any chance of hunting. Thats not giving its prey a "sporting" chance, thats just making things pointlessly difficult for the bear.

That's a bit of a strawman, Keltest.

I'm not talking about a guy cutting off his hands and feet and headbutting a dear to death.

If you want to be sporting about it, you should be reliant on mostly your own skill, intellect, and physical attributes. Go in there with only the bare minimum you need to track the animal and take it down cleanly.

And if you can't track an animal using your own knowledge of the forest and the habits of that kind of animal and can't make a clean kill with a spear, a bow, and arrow, or if you absolutely must a handgun, then you honestly have no business being in the woods hunting and animal for sport in the first place.

And to repeat for the sake of clarity, this is not in reference to subsistence hunting, hunting for population control or removal of an invasive species, or going out and bringing home a deer for dinner just like grandpa showed you. This is referring exclusively to people hunting solely for the honor and glory of the hunt.

[enderlord99]

Almost every animal is capable of eating things other than their base assigned food. Bears eat enough meat to count as apex predators, even accounting for their other stuff.

A quick check shows that this is actually wrong and as such bears are generally not apex predators. Black Bears are lower on the food chain than some predators, and Grizzlies primarily eat fish.

If it eats other animals (predator) and it isn't eaten by anything (apex) then it's an apex predator. Being an obligate carnivore is not a requirement.

[LaZodiac]

Except we are apex predators. We didn't start out with technology. We started out with nothing, and we fought and clawed our way to the top. We are the apex predator.

Any apex predator cases to be an apex predator if you introduce them into another environment with another apex predator that's bigger and badder than the first one. A tiger is an apex predator in the jungle but they wander into a lagoon and a shark can take it down. Heck, domestic cats are apex predators in residential neighborhoods. Apex predator is defined by environment. And we control the environment. We can introduce guns or tools or technology or spears or even slings with pebbles to gain the advantage. There is no true apex predator but us.

Human beings are, scientifically speaking, not apex predators. Our thropic levels disqualifies us; apex predators are determined not just by the simple binary of "are you hunted" and "do you eat meat". It is determined by that lack of being prey and hunting prey, but it is also based on the average daily intake of the predator species PLUS the average amount of the species overall consumption of that food type. Humanity in general does not become an apex predator just because for example I ate five hot dogs today. Humanity as a whole trends towards non-meat.

We are a species that, due to our development, are now at the top of the ecological tree, but that does not make us an apex predator. Hell, so very little of us do hunting for sustenance that, personally bias here as opposed the science quoting above, that I don't really think we can call ourselves predators. We are a Top Species, but not an Apex Predator.

If it eats other animals (predator) and it isn't eaten by anything (apex) then it's an apex predator. Being an obligate carnivore is not a requirement.

It explicitly is noted that they have to be primary carnivore to be an Apex Predator. Grizzly Bears are primary pescavore, not carnivore.

[enderlord99]

Ah, yes. The six kingdoms of life: Bacteria, Archeae, Plants, Fungi, Animals, and Fish.

[LaZodiac]

Ah, yes. The six kingdoms of life: Bacteria, Archeae, Plants, Fungi, Animals, and Fish.

I mean fish isn't meat!

[Domino Quartz]

I mean fish isn't meat!

What is it, then?

[LaZodiac]

What is it, then?

Fish is fish. Sea-food, if you would. I'm not the one who makes the rules I just know them!