Ask Rei Anything
December 25, 2004- Merry Christmas, everybody!
Don't let the man- uh... WOULD it be 'man'? Damn... Don't let the... something keep you down!
I have seen my future. From what I can see, my life will be ruled by
video games and anime. Should I accept this future or attempt to
change my life to be ruled by the government?
-Deberk
Accept your current lifestyle, I say, at least unless your home appliances and gaming equipment gain artificial intelligences. You see, you may turn into a bit of a veggie from the electronics, but at least
you'll be a semi-free veggie that won't be overly screwed-with by people that could theoretically make your life miserable (assuming a less-than-benevolent government that you usually see in futuristic situations like yours).
But if your stuff becomes sentient, side with the government. Not that it'll matter much, as it might well BECOME the new government, but if you've ever seen the Terminator movies, you might recall that machines can become rather pissy with people.
In the end, you'll have to make your own decision, but I hope that my guidelines give you something to think over.
Nothing to sneeze at...
Yo, Yo, Yo, Rei, wassup, wassup, wassup?
This is a friend of the Mizuki, Kirika and Mifuyu Fan. Simply call me "ZeroVirus". I came over to see him one day, and he showed me this site. WHILE HIS PARENTS WERE GONE, of course. I wanted to send you an e-mail, and seeing as I don't have a comp at home, I'm forced to use HIS e-mail. I sure as heck am NOT using the school server to send an e-mail to you. That Garcia guy is strict... Anyway, I have 6 Q's.
1. Have you or YTF ever heard of "Video Mods?" You know... MTV2's video game music videos? And what do you think of them if you have?
2. What's the deal with those farming games? I mean, WHY do people like them so much?
3. Why do I find the new Leisure Suit Larry game so offensive, yet I still like it?
4. Doesn't FullMetal Alchemist rock?!
5. If your woman leaves you for another woman, should you hold the door for both of them?
6. Why would people hate Eiken when it has girls with gazongas like that? (I ask because my friends on the GameFaqs anime board say it won't sell well because it's crap)
By the way, MK&MF told me about the last e-mail he gave you. Somewhere around 14 questions? I pity you sometimes... Maybe you should get an assistant to answer a few for you? Just a thought. Maybe get Hibiki to help you!!! Later!
An infectiously likable MegaMan fan,
The ZeroVirus
P.S.: You're kinda hot!
Oh, cool! It's nice to see that some of the letter-writers have a few friends, tell him I said hi! But anyway...
Answer 1: Not me, not Mr. Y.T.F... Neither of us had heard of them before you told us, and neither of us gets the channel in question. Sorry.
Answer 2: I know it sounds weird, but games where you get to do real-life things that you would NEVER consider doing in real life can be fun to people simply because it's not as hard as the real activity, and to some people, becomes fun instead of annoying. For example, I would never, ever want to be in the same situation as Claude (the guy you control) in Crisis Zone- but I love that game!
Really, it's all a matter of 'do I like this game'? If you do, you do- if you don't, you don't! As for farming games in general- well, how many games let you do that sort of thing? There are gamers out there who base decisions solely around the originality of the game's concept. It's not a bad way to think, really. After all, some great games have bizarre concepts (Katamari Damacy, anybody?). But if you don't like them, that's fine! They're not my favorite either.
Answer 3: Well, offensive games evoke a variety of emotions in people. Outrage, confusion, nervous tittering... I think you're having a lot of the 'I can't believe they got away with that, this rocks' emotion. There's nothing wrong with a little offensive material, I think. After all, isn't offensiveness a pretty abstract concept?
Answer 4: It is pretty cool. Mr. Y.T.F. has seen a few episodes himself (although I doubt it's in his 'anime game plan', and really, by now, do I honestly need to tell you why?)
Answer 5: Perhaps... Why would you be around the one who ditched you in the first place, though? Isn't that sort of a continued insult to yourself?
Answer 6: Because we live in a world where both lolita and Paris Hilton became popular through god-knows-what-means. I swear, it's almost to the point where I'm buying in to Ongo's philosophy where these things are only there to symbolize maternal power- oh wait, I'm rambling. Sorry... Anyway, I imagine that these people believe (let's face it, CORRECTLY) that Eiken is going to have a bad or non-existent story, which is what they watch anime for.
As such, obviously THEY'RE not going to like it. Either that, or they simply don't like breasts that big (Don't ask me why, please. I've long since given up on THAT question.) Or- here's another one- maybe they're just trying to look good for female anime fans by bashing fanservice anime. This is similar to the practice of denying one's exploits in the field of 'playing with one's self'. Everybody knows it's a bluff, but people like to believe it's not.
P.S.: Tee-hee, thanks!
'Ask Rei' Beatdown!
Um, hi there? Its Rapidfire again. Well... actually
now Gigagod. I switched back my name. But anyway, have
have three questions now.
1. Do you by chance like Fighting games? (eg, KOF or
Fatal Fury)
2. What are your views about good vs. evil? Im
interesting in what people think about darkness and
light and that sort of thing. But you don't have to
answer that if you don't want to.
3.Do you think you could wrestle and beat Naga the
Serpent?
....Just a thought.
-Rapidfire, or now Gigagod
Hmm...
Answer 1: I sort of like them; I used to have a lot of fun with the 2-D fighters, myself. I can get pretty far with Terry on Fatal Fury, as one example.
Answer 2: I don't follow that sort of thing too closely, really. I personally think that good and evil are concepts that are too abstract for most to TRULY define. Now, I will admit, there are some people that are or were clearly-cut evil, say, Stalin or Hitler. But here's a concept I think of about this sort of thing. Mr. Y.T.F. told it to me.
In the book 'Battle Royale', imagine that you met Kinpatsu Sakamochi (the leader of the Program) two days before the events of the book. Now, even Shogo said that in the end, killing him PROBABLY wouldn't do much. But maybe if you did it beforehand, you'd delay the Program until the next class would have to be chosen for it. Would you kill him if you KNEW what would happen if you let him live, or take the chance that better, or worse, could happen upon his death?
Obviously, killing people is evil, but Sakamochi was an outright evil asshole. Could that make the act good? But if he died before the Program took place in the book, Shuya (one of the players in the Program) wouldn't have gotten the chance to pull off an escape, and thus make people lose hope in the Program. Wouldn't that just end up being more evil, that you could have, while trying to do good, condemned a few more people to die? I know it sounds confusing, but really, that's my point! It's hard to tell
what's good or what's evil until one knows the results. At least, that's what I think...
Answer 3: I could certainly WRESTLE her, but there's no way I'd ever win. I'm simply too weak! I can see a move on TV or in a video game as many times as I like, but performing many of them is a different story altogether!
Hope you weren't bored listening in to my opinions. See you later!
This question sorta stinks.
Do you fart?
Yes. Who DOESN'T?
Damn, it feels bad to be a student.
I have found myself in a dilemma. On one hand, I find that I have no problem with the idea of killing someone in fair combat. Not because I think that murder is alright, i don't, I simply don't have any emotional reaction to it. I know how to snap an opponent's neck in 5 places, their spine in 17, and various other bones that i don't feel like counting (Before you ask, I have never done anything in a fight worse than break a guy's arm, and he had a knife out, so i feel justified there). On the other hand, I am a hopeless romantic, albeit a somewhat overwheight one with a slight hentai fetish (although only 5 people know about this, and they're the same way). No one at school knows about the first part of my statement (from the no emotion of killing to the breaking of an arm). I have numerous technical skills, such as programming, and all of the people I know say I have a good sense of humor. So my question is this. Why does it seem that no one notices me outside of my 10-15 friends? To the rest of the school, i am either someone to be mocked (several years of this is why i taught myself to kill negative emotions, such as anger and, unintentionally, remorse to a slight extent) or someone to be ignored. I want nothing more than to have a girlfriend, a wife later in life, and some kids. I would give all of my combat knowledge, all of my skills, for this to happen. I might even be willing to give up video games or anime (one or the other, but never both. I'd die a virgin before i gave both up.) Do you have any advice on what I can do? I'm 18, so dating sites would NOT be a good idea now, if they would ever. Any advice would be helpful
And tell MR Y.T.F. that his site is awesome!
Your loyal follower,
(I thought it might be best to leave this out... -Rei)
Why is it that nobody notices you, huh... Well, first off, you say that you've killed off the majority of your emotions. To be fair, I understand why you would do something like that. After all, who would want to deal with teasing and emotional pain? In fact, if these assholes who torment you don't hold any place in your heart, you SHOULDN'T have to act like you care about them. If they openly mock you, you shouldn't feel bad about what they think (and if some of them fight you, why would anyone feel remorse about fighting to defend themselves? Of course, if you're actually STARTING the fights, that's a problem- you're either going about looking for
attention in a rather bad way, or you're really giving the signal for people to avoid you).
Of course, you can't just force all negative emotion to just 'go away'. It won't. Maybe it wouldn't bring about any ill effect, but there's a lot of talk that that sort of thing would lead to, among other things, explosions of violence from you no longer being able to contain the negative emotion, mental breakdowns from having too much that you refuse to face, or things like that. You will have to deal with most of it sometime or another, whether you simply accept it or actively fight it.
Now. As to why people don't seem to notice you outside of your current circle of friends. This may not be what you want to hear, but some skills- perhaps the ones you're the best at, I don't know- don't lend themselves to being, shall I say, 'watched'. That is to say, they're not exactly skills that impress a lot of people as far as friendship-gathering (or at least in mass amounts) goes. Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not saying that your skills are worthless or that they won't get you any more friends. What I AM saying is that
perhaps you're not looking for (or aren't able to find) the best times and places to put them to use in order to impress people. For example- if you're an anime fan, such a thing is still fairly unpopular in America. People don't hate it, but it's hard to find a large concentration of fans unless you really look for one (such as anime conventions or clubs or something of that nature). And it's rarely easy to convince people to change what they like or don't like, that is to say, if your skills don't match what they're looking for, it's unlikely that you'll be able to befriend them easily.
Or maybe, and this may sound weird, but your talents may be seen as being
I realize that I've taken a rather gloomy approach to answering your question so far- here's where it gets better. You seem like a pretty mature person, moreso than a lot of the people you've likely met to this point. But you know what? You said you're 18. That means that the people you're around are also about that age. The great thing about them being 18? They'll eventually settle down to your level, and girls WILL eventually begin looking at people like you, because THEY'LL want to simply settle down, and find a boyfriend, a husband, and a father for their kids (hopefully kids between you two alone). I know it's awful that you may have to wait a very
long time before anything of that nature happens, but when it does, you'll be far happier than you would be if you just desperately went after anything with a pulse.
DON'T change who you are simply because you think it'll get you more friends. If you have to get certain friends by making yourself unhappy, screw them. Let them mess around with their own kind; becoming something you don't want to be will only make you unhappy. Just do whatever's possible to meet people with similar interests, face to face. I know that it won't be easy, but there's ways to pick up little signs that certain people might be into the same things you like (for example, an anime fan could try looking around the manga section of a bookstore). Or, try asking the friends you have about friends of their own; perhaps you could use them as your own personal network for that...
And don't worry yourself too much about girls right now. As I said, many people of 18 still haven't really found the personality they'll bring into adulthood. That is to say, many of their tastes and activities are still liable to change in the blink of an eye. It's better to wait for the girls you know to become stable, with their personalities having come into their own. After all, aren't mature women so much cooler than spoiled girls that act all snooty and stuck-up? Hey, there's another idea! Try aiming a little higher! Maybe your best prospects for friendship aren't your own age... You just gotta look and see!
There you go... I'm really sorry if I didn't help you, but I hope that my advice gets you what you want. If it doesn't... then all I can say is that I'm sorry and that I'll stop giving advice on subjects like this.
Computer illiteracy- reely stewpud!
Hello, Miss Rei. It is I, RLB. I have a quick question.
1. Boy, oh boy, I remember this time I was trying to show this girl who's constantly IMing me how to register at a message board, she was all like:
(Condensed version.)
Girl: I don't know the password.
RLB: ... I thought we already went through this, you have to register before you can access this forum.
Girl: How do you do that?
RLB: *for the third time* It's easy, just click on the "register now" button, and fill in what name you want and what password.
Girl: But I don't know the password.
RLB: *reaches for gun*
So, you see, the problem, is that I shot myself. Where can I buy some cream for that, Miss Rei? Because as I type this, I am most assuredly bleeding, all over the keyboard. (Argh... And she's still going.)
You could try to find the old medicinal form of Super Glue (there really is one), it should at least seal up the hole. I'm not too sure what you can do about the missing brain chunks, unless you're a werewolf that regenerates fully during a full moon,
and even so, I forget the schedules on that. I hope that helps, I'm not much on medicine.
But as for the girl, Mr. Y.T.F. jokes 'shotgun', but if you're not friends with her, we BOTH suggest just blocking her to get her off your case.
Please let me hear more of your advice, Miss Rei.
Thank you Rei! Now lead me back to the Yuka Takeuchi Fan!