Self-Indulgent and Overstated Nerdlove: The Last of Us’ Plot

*Warning!  There are going to be metric ton of spoilers!  If you have not played this game, don’t read further!*

I love this game.  Having finally gotten all the way through the single-player campaign, I have seen what this game was trying to be, and I love it.  The plot of this game and how it is used is something that I think is going to be talked about for years to come.  This is a trend-setting game.  This is a game that is going to set the standard for great stories of this kind.  While I am saying that, let me point out that not all games should follow this format.  Some games, like the Mass Effect Series, don’t follow this kind of format of very centralized plot at all.  And for the better.  Free range of choice and learning about a world is a good thing.  But for this kind of game (survival-horror or action adventure, of which this game is a merger of both), this level of emotional commitment and emotional climax that leaves the player feeling so many things at once by the end should be taken to heart.

The thing that truly makes this story is that it isn’t large.  For real, for as heavy as some of the subject matter can be, it is never, ever large.  It isn’t about the world and this infection.  It isn’t about the fact that Ellie has the cure for it inside of her and what it can do for the human race.  It isn’t about the time that Joel has spent becoming part of the life he leads.  It is about the Joel and Ellie’s journey.  But the destination isn’t the point of this journey.  In fact, the destination is almost superfluous.  Truly, it is about the personal journey that these two characters take when they are heading toward a future unknown.

Let me clarify.  This game opens with Joel coming home from work.  His daughter is on the couch, up past her bedtime to give her dad a present for his birthday.  Where is the mother?  Who knows.  What is their relationship?  They don’t clarify.  You get the feeling that the two are close and get along.  Joel is doing his best to make a good life for the two of them, but it doesn’t go beyond that.  It just shows these two have a night together.  Very quickly, things go horribly wrong.  After his daughter is killed, the game jumps ahead 20 years.  What happened in that time?  While you are given bits and pieces of what happened, the total story is never given to you.  There is not a single point in this game where it goes into a broad exposition-dump.  Again, that isn’t what this game is about.

The reason that they don’t force these unnatural conversations is because the goal of this game was simple – making it feel organic.  I mean, who just talks about where their mother is if they don’t live with them anymore on a given night?  Almost nobody.  Who talks about what they have been doing for the last 20 years with a person they just met?  You see that Joel tells Ellie more and more as time goes by, but since these conversations would naturally happen at random times and wouldn’t be often, it is only natural that the player wouldn’t be privy to when they talk about all of this.  Again, it feels organic.

That is one thing that I absolutely love.  But the other thing is the emotional levels that they go to in this game, and they do it by not letting the game’s grim tone get lost.  Not for a second.  My personal favorite parts in the game were when Ellie gets kidnapped.  Alone, she doesn’t flinch.  She fights until she has nothing left, because she doesn’t want to die, and she doesn’t want to leave Joel, the only friend she truly has.  He is also something of a father-figure by that point as well.  The final scene in the restaurant when you kill the bandit leader, and you see how destroyed Ellie is by the fact that she is fighting for her life against a monster that wanted to kill and cut her up into parts to be eaten by the bandit group.  All of the ugliness of her situation, along with her inner desperation at what she faces, comes to a head at that point.  She keeps on striking and striking the man with a machete, crying the whole time.  When Joel pulls her off him, she sobs in his arms.  That scene was beyond powerful.  It was downright heart-breaking to watch.

The second scene that has stuck with me the most is (for real, if you haven’t finished the campaign, stop reading, right now.  Don’t let me spoil this.  You have to see this for yourself) when Joel and Ellie finally reach their destination.  Joel is confronted with the fact that the cure that Ellie has in her body can’t be made into a cure in a large-scale without killing her.  Now, Ellie has become the thing that makes his life worth living.  You have seen how broken and alone Joel has become since the death of his daughter.  You see him being given his reason to live back, and now he is faced with it being taken away and there is nothing he can do about it.  That is, if he wants a cure for humanity.  Without even a second thought, Joel kills the guard who is leading him out, then goes on a rampage, killing all the rest of the guards, to get the only person on Earth who matters to him back.  Now, I don’t know if you could have just taken Ellie when you got to the surgical wing, but I didn’t tempt fate.  I killed all the surgeons in there.  Blew away the first one with El Diablo.  Took out my small semi-automatic pistol and blew away the second.  The third is crying on the floor, but you get so caught up in how desperate Joel is, I killed her too.  She is on the ground, saying you are a monster when I shot her the first time.  I finished her off.  No reason to make her suffer.

But the thing that has stuck with me is after that.  Joel picks up the tiny body of his young companion on the operating table, hauling her out as fast as he can.  He gets to the base of the elevator and is greeted by the woman who paired them up.  She gave him this job.  She tells him that this is how it has to be.  She can save so many.  And what future is there for her if she doesn’t?  The future is vile, ugly and filled with pain.  What kind of life can this little girl expect?  She puts that to Joel, and you can see that he is wrestling with it.  But, in the end, he decides to kill the woman and take Ellie back to where his brother lives.

As they are are arriving, Joel is confronted by Ellie.  He told her a massive lie to get her to not question going back.  She is a smart kid.  She confronts this man who means everything to her about the fact that life has been nothing but death and pain, leaving her to wonder when her turn is coming.  Then she tells you to do something.

“Swear to me that everything you told me is true.”  Without missing a beat, Joel says that he swears.  He made his peace with what is happening.  Then, comes the single-greatest moment in the game.  You can see on her face that she knows he’s lying.  But, in the end, it is easier for her to be with the person she cares about and accept ignorance than to fight against it.  If that doesn’t make you think, especially about what you would do in her or his place, then there is something wrong with you.

I am not against Joel’s decision to take her away.  After all, humanity is already dead.  He chooses to fight for the friendships and the love he has, rather than embrace a hope that means nothing at this point, because without her, he has nothing.  They have taken care of each other.  They are all each other has, and it has made his life worth living.  The dedication it takes to fight and kill people you called allies in order to save the life of someone you love must be respected.  Similarly, I see where Ellie is coming from.

Let’s all admit that we embrace ignorance when it makes life better.  There isn’t a human relationship that doesn’t do this.  Romantic, family, you name it.  We all do it, and we all try and make it sound like it is noble.  It’s not noble, it is just better, for us.  I’m not hating on this, but I do recognize this.

This is a game that has stuck with me.  I am still thinking about it.  The scene when I walked in to the operating room and then saw all three surgeons look up in fear.  It literally was a reflex at that point.  I didn’t test and see if I didn’t have to kill them to take her.  I just blasted the first, then the second and finally the third.  Because this game connected with me.  I wanted to see Joel end up okay.  I wanted to see these two find some resolution.  And that is why this game is great.  That’s life.  We all want there to be some catharsis to it all.  We all want everything to mean something, because without that meaning, what do we have?  In a way, we are all Joel and Ellie, trying to get through life.

And that is my nerdlove for the weekend.  For all those who read this, I hope you enjoyed this game as much as I have.

Until next time, a quote,

“You’re gonna go in there?!” -Ellie
“I just wanna know what we’re gonna find.” -Joel
“You’re gonna find my body when I die from a heart attack.” -Ellie, The Last of Us

Peace out,

Maverick

Why Are You So Upset about This? (A Response to Salon Magazine)

Dammit, I didn’t want to do this.  I wanted to just get ready for bed and to go to sleep.  It has been a long day.  Tomorrow will be longer.  But no, you just had to put out an article that I find annoying.  This is the second article that I have written in a publication that I generally agree with that bugs me.  The article is entitled “Are straight actors in gay roles the new blackface?“  The idea behind this article is that by having straight people play gay roles, it is doing the same offensive thing that actors and actresses doing blackface did when that was something that a regular thing in cinema.

I will try and keep this short, but here is the big and small of it – why does this matter?  Apparently, in a lot of publications, actors who portray gay characters in films are often praised for taking some kind of courageous stand.  Now, I am partially with the article when I saw that piece of information.  I mean, really?  It is now a fact that the majority of American opinion is in favor of LGBT rights and their respective communities.  Somebody tells me that they’re gay, my only reaction is to wonder why they told me that if I didn’t ask.  While bigotry is something that will never truly be abolished, being openly hateful of the LGBT community is met with just as harsh of criticism by large parts of America as when a white man calls a black man a “nigger.” (now to see how many subscribers I lose because I said that word, instead of calling it “the n-word.”  Forgive me if I actually want to talk about something, instead of tip-toe around PC culture) We are offended by these things and stand against them.  So why are actors getting praised for playing gay roles if they are not gay?  That is a legitimate question, by the way.  If you have an answer, comment below.

But the article then goes on to say that we should have gay people telling gay stories.  I am all for that, but here is the thing – it all comes down to one simple question – are the stories being told good?  We can look back on blackface and mock it for the racist farce that it is, but think about this – how many black people were in cinema back then?  The reality is that while blackface is mocked now, we forget that there is a time period perspective that should be taken into account, and isn’t being.

Are the stories about gay people that are being acted by straight people bad?  If the answer is no, and it is not putting a prejudiced spin on the issue, then I ask you, writer of this article – why do you care?  The whole point of cinema is that we are seeing stories.  They are being told on screen for us, the audience, to judge.  So, are these stories good?  For me, that is the first, last and only question that I ask.  It is the reason that I am able to enjoy movies like “Eyes Wide Shut,” which has a blatantly sexist angle, if you think about it.  Movies are a product of their time period, and we can’t get past that.  We have straight actors playing gay roles because we have a lot of damn-good straight actors.  If the actors are doing their job well, and they make the story interesting, then why are you complaining?

From where I am sitting, it sounds more like they are just mad that their own group isn’t at the fore-front of these projects.  So, does that mean that we should have only Asian directors about stories involving Asian people?  What about having only women directing stories about women?  And before you go off on me, there have been excellent films about women directed by men.  And vice-versa.  Speaking of, should only men be in charge of stories about men?

I watch movies like Loving Annabelle and see games like Mass Effect 3, where a very straight man played a gay man who lost his husband, and I see good performances.  In the end, that is the only thing that matters.  So, I guess the point of this rambling response is – lighten the fuck up, man!  It’s a movie.  So long as it is a good movie that represents the community it is intended to, then what is your fucking problem?!

For real, think about it.

Until next time, a quote,

“I’ve got to let go.  For real, this time.  The refugees have put up a memorial wall.  They leave mementos of loved ones.  I was thinking, maybe.”  -Steve Cortez, Mass Effect 3

Peace out,

Maverick

Lucien’s Review: The Last of Us

Right out of the gate, this is a game that is designed to make you feel.  Given the bombastic nature of the last series that Naughty Dog worked on, the Uncharted series, this is a refreshing change of pace.  Though anyone who has played Uncharted will recognize a lot of elements.  Up front, this is a game that is intense and very, very fulfilling.  It is a game that starts out strong and doesn’t let up, throughout its entirety.  It takes its premise seriously and tries to make the story believable.  It isn’t massive in scope.  This story is small.  About one man and his young cargo, headed on a journey out of the center of madness, to what they hope is something better.

I don’t want to say too much about the story, for those who haven’t gotten to play yet.  The game starts out with the main character, Joel, getting home after a hard day’s work.  His young daughter is at his house, and you have a quiet moment with the two of them where you find out that it’s Joel’s birthday.  But very quickly, things start going wrong.  A massive plague has been unleashed, and it has turned so many of the citizens into mindless zombies.  Joel and his daughter rendezvous with his brother Tommy and try to make it out of the city.  They get cut off and something bad happens.  The game picks up 20 years later.  Now, Joel is a much older and much colder man.  He is a smuggler in a walled-off city that is trying to survive.  But all that changes when he gets a new job – smuggle a young girl out of the city.  From there, nothing in his life is the same.

Anyone who has played the Uncharted series will notice several similarities about the gameplay.  While those games were over-the-top in most places, it placed subtle emphasis on realism in little ways.  How you interact with people, how your character moves, how the characters talk.  This game is much the same, but since it is trying to create a realistic atmosphere, it tones down the over-the-top.  In fact, if I had to say anything about the gameplay, it is realistic.

This game is NOT about action.  In fact, given the incredibly small amount of bullets you have in any given area, choosing to try and blast your way through a place is not a smart move.  Rather, this game puts your stealth skills to the test.  The worst is when you are against the infected.

See, the zombies in this game aren’t the typical zombies that we think of.  Modeled after a real-life fungus that infects animals, there is a fungal infection that turns humans into monsters.  As a person gets more infected, there are some changes.  See, early stages can run and you can actually fight them.  But, again, stealth is far more preferable.  However, there is a second stage that you must be absolutely-sure to be quiet around.  The second stage is when the fungal infection has blocked the infected’s eyes.  So, they see with sound.  The difference here is that if they catch you, it’s game-over.  That’s why you have to be smart.  Then there is the third stage.  The third stage is when these creatures are overtaken by the fungus and start growing into the walls.  They release spores, which can make more of them.

Along with the infected, there is also the human element to worry about.  Again, if you played the Uncharted series, then the mechanics of this should be somewhat familiar.  To help advocate for stealth, this game gives you lots of tools to be better at it.  The gameplay is simple enough to be accessible, so sneaking and using surroundings feels intuitive.  But since you have precious few bullets, wasting them is NOT a good idea.  So, you can sneak up behind enemies and strangle them.  This is quiet, but takes time.  It helps that, like Splinter Cell, you can walk with enemies.  It helps to have one as a human shield, if you get into trouble.  But it also mean that you can move them to a quieter place, to strangle them.  If you are in combat and sneak up to an enemy, it does an automatic quick-kill.  But if you want your work to be quicker, you can get a shiv.  But this is not a total blessing, because until you upgrade your shivs, they break easily and can usually be used only once.  You can also get weapons like boards and pipes, but you have the same problem.  Your guns can also be upgraded, and it is flexible in letting you choose what you want to do.

The best parts of this game, for me, boils down to two things.  The first is that there is almost no exposition-dumping.  The 20 years that passed, along with the characters and their relationships are gradually found out, over the course of the game.  You also get back-story to what happened in the world.  How things got the way they are.  The second is that this is a small game, focused on a few characters and their fight to survive against an unbelievably cruel world.  There is also Joel and his regrets about his past, and the secrets surrounding his young companion.

While we are talking about that, I think it is best to mention that this girl is in NO way Ashley from Resident Evil 4.  She is good at looking after herself, and she follows your lead.  So, if you are being stealthy, so is she.  If you are choosing to fight, so does she.  But she is smart about it.  That is the best blessing about this game.  Having to carry her for the entire game would be unbelievably tedious.

The graphics of this game are great.  They milked absolutely ALL of the potential that they possible could from the PS3.  The music is soft and sparse.  That is nice, because being able to hear is something that you will need.  Your surroundings are more important than you can know.  But it is amazing to look at.  The small details are given great amount of focus and you feel like this is a place that you could actual exist in.  For the fungus zombies, it is fucking terrifying to look at.  For real, they spared no expense making these things look intimidating.  And the environments can have their own terrifying quality.  The fear in this game isn’t shoved in your face, but it is definitely there when it needs to be.

This is an incredible game.  Naughty Dog has created one of the most emotionally-powerful games that I have ever seen, with all the intensity of a horror film.  This is the kind of game that is going to be talked about for years to come.  The emotional levels reached in this production are incredible.  This may just be their finest work yet.  This was the first time that I got to the end of a game and was secretly hoping that they don’t make a sequel.  That could only diminish this.  The same as if there was a sequel made to Cloud Atlas.  Naughty Dog should feel proud of their work.  The gameplay is accessible.  The story is intense and it never backs down from its intensity.  The characters are all engaging and all of them have their own issues.  The visuals are amazing.  All-in-all, Naughty Dog has done an amazing job.  If you are one of the people bitching that it is only on the PS3, well, I have one thing to say to you -

Nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah-nyah!

That’s right, I am that mature.

Final Verdict
10 out of 10

Peace out,

Maverick

Time: The Keeper of My Prison

I think that one of my favorite quotes in Mass Effect 3 comes from Garrus after the mission to Grissom Academy.  He points out that most good parents will raise kids telling them that the universe is a good place, with some rough spots here and there, but good overall.  They will grow up believing that things work out for the best, and things will be okay.  But then you have them face an ugly reality that burns this illusion to the ground.  What do they do?  It honestly doesn’t surprise me that most of my generation who is grown up is taking some kind of anti-depressant or mood-stabilizer.  We are raised to believe that the whole world is in front of us, but the truth isn’t nearly as pretty.

Time is a companion.  You may wish it to move slower or wish it to stop altogether, but it is always with you as you go through life.  It will remind you of the good times, but it will also remind you of the bad ones.  It will show you the pain, but show you good things, when they happen.  It is non-judgmental, doesn’t take sides and does its duty.  It is the keeper of the world.

For me, time is the keeper of my prison.  The constant reminder of how little is happening in my life.  The companion who tells me what so many others have, and I don’t.  A girl I used to run with posts on Facebook that she is in a relationship.  It is with a guy that she was running with before me.  I have no ill-will toward that.  Not at all.  Given how little happiness there is to be found in this world, I am always glad that people can find something to make the long nights easier.  But that’s how it is with everyone.  Everyone is in love, everyone is getting what they want.  Everyone is happy.  But not me.

More time passes by, the more posts I see about friends getting into relationships.  It must come so easily to most.  I keep hearing about how love is so hard, but from where I am sitting, it doesn’t seem to be hard for most of the people I know.  They are in and out of relationships like it is nothing.  Sure, they hurt for a bit, but only after it ends.  For me, love was a fuck-ton of work that, in hindsight, wasn’t worth my time.  And yet, that is how it is.

A friend of mine told me that a former friend of mine is going to be running for a seat of government here in Anchorage.  Some city council or something.  I wasn’t listening that intently.  I tend to tune out sometimes.  I was thinking about the former friend.  His wife and I used to be incredibly close.  But, when her husband stopped liking me, she stopped liking me.  Monkey-see, monkey-do.  For me, I see time doing so many things for people.

They all seem to have direction.  I’m lucky if I can figure out what I am going to have for breakfast.  I know what my immediate obligations are, but five years down the road, ten years down the road, I don’t have a fucking clue.  What am I lacking?  It might be passion.

As I have become more and more walled-off from the world, I find my ability to feel anything is waning.  To avoid getting hurt, I just don’t care.  Sure, the next neat story that I see gets my attention.  I care about the superficial.  But what do I have to care about beyond that?  With my head injury, the family connections are gone.  They never did come back.  I kept hoping that they would, with time.  But they never did.  So, there are no family connections, even though the family tries their damndest.  I don’t begrudge them that.  It’s in their nature to be that way.  With no romance and no interest in romance, along with the residual resentment of being used and betrayed by love, I no longer feel anything for that.  With friends all going off in their own directions, leaving me behind (and given that I, a titan of a man, am quite forgettable), I no longer am feeling much for that.  With nothing to care about, I have been going out of my way to not care.  Easier, really.  But maybe that is what it is.

Passion just doesn’t exist in my life.  For anything.  Ever.  And time is still the ever-present companion through all of it.  It follows me down life’s pathways, never letting me go.  The people who work at the coffee-shop at my job joke that they never see me smile.  They are on a mission to get me to do so.  I do feel for their position.  I am being as cold as humanly possible, without meaning to hurt anybody.  I just don’t want to hurt anymore.

Time is the keeper of my prison.  A girl that I was in kind of an odd position with told me that if I wanted something bad enough, I would find a way to get it.  Yeah, because money isn’t tight and I don’t have obligations, right?  If I could, I would pack up my shit right now and get out of this state.  I would go somewhere far away and find a place to call my own.  Pity that Seattle is so expensive to live in.  Rain and wind constantly, it is my kind of place.  Plus, no more winter.

Winters are brutal to me.  With no one to curl up with and to take the ugliness of the nights away, I am always at my loneliest in winter.  I want to go to a place where winter doesn’t follow.  Seattle would do nicely.  But again, expensive to live there.  And the job market sucks there.  I’m a journalism major.  I follow these things.  Had a friend suggest that her and I buy a run-down motel in Squaw Valley, California, and fix it up.  It wouldn’t be hard.  It is along a tourist route, and gets heavy business accordingly.  Fix it up and it would be a regular cash-cow.  Alas, she hasn’t brought that plan up again.  A small hope, never to be.

Time is the keeper of my prison.  The keeper of this stagnation.  The constant reminder of how everyone is going places and I’m not.  I hate living, but death sounds even more boring.  Boredom, more than anything else, keeps me here.  But this stagnation is killing me.  The same job, the same people, the same place, the same world, and nowhere to go.

Time is a real piece of shit.

Until next time (pun intended), a quote,

“I like to expect the worst.  There’s a small chance I’ll be pleasantly surprised.”  -Garrus Vakarian, Mass Effect 2

Peace out,

Maverick

Lucien’s Review: Star Trek: Into Darkness

Having the right company makes all the difference.  Going to see the film with a friend who I haven’t seen in FAR too long, who I know for a fact likes to watch shit blow up was exactly what was needed for tonight.  The sequel to the ironically divisive film (among Trekkies), this was J.J. Abrams back in his zone.  I loved watching this movie.  It was better than the original, in my opinion.

Before talking about what I loved about this movie, I will start with a couple little nit-picks.  For starters, the plot wasn’t any smarter in this movie.  It wasn’t nearly as ridiculous as the previous film, but it was still a dumb action movie, by all respects.  Also, some of the pacing was a little off, in certain sections.  Most of those were toward the beginning.  That’s all of my nit-picks.

While the plot of this film wasn’t any smarter than the original, like the original, the thing that saved it was the characters.  Every single role in this movie was better.  The chemistry between Kirk and Spock was great.  Leonard Nimoy made a cameo as the original Spock, and they tie that in in a REALLY cool way with the plot, contrasting the original series and films with these ones.  A credit to Abrams on that.  Simon Pegg was in his element as Scotty in a way that seemed more fun to watch than the first movie.  But the thing that stole the show in this movie was the villain.  Played by Benedict Cumberbatch, who I have absolutely adored since I first saw him on the BBC series “Sherlock” (that the American series “Elementary” completely ripped off), the role of Khan in this film was truly spectacular.  He stole the show.  Much the same as the Joker did in “The Dark Knight.”

This simply was the character’s films.  It’s the reason that I am forgiving of the slightly ridiculous plot.  The dialogue between Khan and Kirk made this movie for me.  It’s kind of ironic that Cumberbatch was so worried that he was going to crash and burn with this role.  He steals the show so completely with his cold confidence and absolutely certainty of his superiority of everyone.

The action sequences for this film was great to watch.  This movie has a gift at having just the right amount of enormous CG sequences with the same kinds of fun and quirky sets.  The ship battles were also on-par with the original film.  They even took some shots at the original with another manned-drop in space-suits.  They pointed out some of the flaws of the previous film, which was kind of cool.

That brings me to another aspect I loved – the references to the previous-generation of Star Trek which had Khan in it.  A LOT of great references, which I don’t want to spoil were made, contrasting what happened then with the fact that this is a new crew and a new set of rules.  I will say that Leonard Nimoy’s cameo has a lot to do with it, and it is just great.  It is kind of a pity that I don’t want to spoil anything, if you haven’t seen it, because there is SO much that I want to spoil for you.  Though I figure it wouldn’t be spoiling for many, because I figure that everyone I know and their brothers and sisters have seen this movie already.  But, on the off-chance you haven’t, I won’t.

Unfortunately, I can’t gush any more about this film without spoiling a ton for you, so I’m afraid that I am going to cut this review short.  This was a great follow-up to a fun movie.  A lot of Trekkies didn’t like how the previous film was a dumb action movie, but they need to mellow out.  For real, chill.  It’s Star Trek.  If you have actually watched the original series, I think that we can all agree that it is corny and campy fun in its own right.

Thinking about the Final Verdict for this film, I am given slight pause.  This movie was so much fun to watch, but I do have to admit that there wasn’t an especially large amount of brains to it.  The characters are definitely the saving grace of this movie, and it was great to see.  I also love seeing one of my favorite anti-heroes (Sherlock) become the villain for this movie.  So, what rating do I give it?  After much deliberation, here it is.  If you haven’t seen this movie already, do it.  You won’t be disappointed.

Final Verdict:
8 out of 10

Peace out,

Maverick

The Lost Generation (A Response to Time Magazine)

A recent issue of Time Magazine had a cover article called “The Me Me Me Generation: Millienials who are lazy, entitles narcissists who still live with their parents.  Why they’ll save us all.”  It was written by Joel Stein.  Now look, I am the first who will say that there are a ton of the people who this man is describing.  Lazy, entitled narcissists.  It has been rather easy to point at our generation and make insults.  The older generations seem very stead fast in their desire to make themselves feel good by insulting people like me.  A curious trend, to be sure.

But something that gets lost among the talks about how pathetic my generation is is one simple fact – you made us this way.  I am about to do something that is 100% mean-spirited.  I am going to put this in front of the party who is responsible for what has happened to us.

I was raised with during a time when every kid was being told that they were the absolute best that they could possibly be.  I’m not talking in the self-assuring and kind ways like Mr. Rogers used to do.  I mean where self-esteem is being shoved down our throat.  We are made to think that we are the most important thing in the room.

I remember when I was a kid, I played soccer.  Was never very good at it.  I just couldn’t help kicking that ball as hard as was humanly possible.  Nailed a couple of kids in the face with it.  I was a titan back then as well.  But something I noticed – every kid who played got a medal.  Just for playing.  What?!  The reality was that our team sucked.  We almost never won a game, and when we did, it was treated about the same as if we had lost.  We were playing to win, but our coaches didn’t seem to notice that.  We were being told how good we were, even when we weren’t.  This fact did not escape my notice, even as a kid.

The mantra that I was given, growing up, was that we are all totally super and never to feel bad.  It was given to every kid.  Our education system pandered to it (though I suspect more to avoid getting sued than for the student’s sake) by making our education standards more and more lax, with teachers not calling out kid’s mistakes.  We were never given harsh criticism.  I remember that the most harsh criticism I had of my work in school came from myself.  The only reason that I didn’t do as well as I should have in high school is because I didn’t care.  The education itself was a joke, so I saw no reason to get invested in it.

Every kid goes out into the world, thinking that we already rule the place.  You don’t think that that would make us a little bit entitled and narcissistic?  Don’t kid yourselves.  But what is out there to greet us?  What bright future does my generation get to look forward to, since it is clearly your generation who still has control of this country?  Well, we have overwhelming levels of unemployment (and don’t quote statistics at me.  Those are done from the people who are designated as ‘unemployed,’ with the unemployment offices of America.  There is a massive gap of people who don’t have a job, but don’t qualify) and the job market is so tooth and claw, with there being almost no economic mobility for the lower classes, that most of my generation is going to languish in poverty.

Again, I am going to be more than a little harsh – this is your fault.  You raise kids to think that the world is such an awesome place and that they are so great, but when they get out into it, what do they find?  A world that is harsh, unforgiving and doesn’t give a crap about the fact that they are struggling. Is it any wonder that the rates of depression and suicide have gone up as much as they have?  Especially when you look at how quickly kids are being thrown into adulthood.  Seems like kids can’t even enjoy being kids anymore without having to worry about their future.

The most interesting parts of America and how utterly ugly the economic and social future of the nation is looking is that my generation is, in a way that the Boomer generation who is now old has totally taken for granted, taking a subtle revenge.  We aren’t having kids.  A lot of my generation is smart enough to read between the lines.  It’s impossible to survive on the salary of an entry-level job these days.  Heck, it is getting harder and harder to survive on upper-level position salaries for somebody who isn’t employed as an accountant.  So, we are playing it safe.  Fewer and fewer of my generation is having kids, and when they do, it is in fewer amounts.

You know what this means for the generations who mock us?  A lot of things, and all of them bad.  It means that when you get old, there won’t be people to replace you in a lot of ways.  With less people, we will have a lot of the same problems that a lot of 1st-world European countries and Japan are having.  It means that when you get old, and need somebody to take care of you, there may not be so many of us around to do that, even if the pay is nice.

And, like I said, you have nobody to blame but yourselves.  Mean?  Yes.  True?  Absolutely.

Until next time, a quote,

“Youth is wasted on the young.”  -Oscar Wilde

Peace out,

Maverick

How I Would have done the Mass Effect 3 Ending

Well, since I made a post years after the Star Wars prequels came out about how I would have done those, I thought to myself – why not do one for the Mass Effect 3 ending?  I have been putting a ton of thought into this, and I think what I have would work.

My redo would be nothing short of massive.  I would be redoing this from the ground-up.  It would start at everything that happened after the Victory Fleet goes to Earth.  A lot like Mass Effect 2, the things that you did would massively affect the ending to the entire series.  The war assets you gained would play an unbelievably huge roll.  Yes, the showing of the battle against the Reaper fleet would take a million years.  Worth it, for this.  All the neat space-combat assets you got, like the Volus dreadnought and the Vorcha fighter squad would be shown, doing their thing.  You could also show the assets you get as part of the DLC missions.  It would be an add-on or patch for that.  Whatever.  Depending on if you got both the Quarians and Geth forces to have your back, it would also have some neat tie-ins with the space combat, as you would see Geth forces protecting Quarian ships, doing SO much damage to the Reapers.  I also like the idea of seeing Aria’s fleet doing some damage to the Reapers, with that bat-shit crazy Asari captain.

Also, like in Mass Effect 2, what war assets you have will affect who lives and who dies in the final act.  Along with your galactic readiness.  Once you get to Earth, there would be some neat ways that you could strategically use your various assets, like the Geth Prime platoon, or the Krogans on Kakliosaurs.  You can ever strategically place the Leviathan artifacts, to gain control of Reaper forces.  Depending on how many you have to work with, I like the idea of there being a secret way that you could use them to take control of a Reaper, and get them attack their own.  Admit it, that would be AWESOME to see!  But yeah, if you scrounged the galaxy for assets, then you won’t be disappointed.  Also, since you have old allies as assets, you can use them as well.  Maybe even get some of them as additions to your squad.  Getting to fight with your old crew again.  Awesome, right?

But there would be another important aspect of this.  Depending on how many assets you have an how well you use them, it will affect what shape you are in when you reach the Citadel.  If you are maxed-out and use them wisely, then you will be in good health with your armor intact.  If not, then you will be blasted to shit and have only one weapon.  With no medigel to help.  This is important because once you reach the Citadel, you run into an old friend – The Illusive Man.  I would red-con the entire segment with Anderson.  He is either dead or back on the ground, fighting it out.  I would keep the bit with the Normandy getting your crew out.  If they survived, that is.  You get in there, alone, and then you find out one of two things.

Depending on whether or not you left TIM the Collector Base at the end of Mass Effect 2, it plays out differently.  If you did, then he became Indoctrinated, and is now Harbinger’s puppet.  If not, then you find out that he spent time studying Indoctrination.  When he saw the power it had, he couldn’t resist putting it to use.  Akin to the story of Prometheus and giving fire to humanity, if you know your Greek mythology.  When he sees the capabilities that it gives him, he figures out that there must be a way to control not just soldiers, but the Reapers at large.   After the mission on Thessia, you find out that he learned much from the Catalyst.  He found out what the Crucible’s true purpose is.  Instead of it being a device that tons of Cycles built, it would be a weapon that the Protheans designed.  They had an idea.  The Reapers are machines.  They developed a special kind of signal.  This signal was going to be bounced off the Mass Relays, using their power to broadcast it.  This signal has one of two possibilities.  Either it would shut them down, or take control.  That’s right, no more Hologram Kid.  He doesn’t exist.  The Leviathan DLC already filled in the missing parts of the plot.  We’re keeping this simple.

So, in homage to the original Mass Effect, you have a war of words with TIM.  Depending on what you do, he either kills himself, or you end up having to kill him.  But, like the original, if he is under Harbinger’s control, Harbinger mutates him, and you have one final battle.  This is where your health comes into play.  If your armor and whatnot is intact, this battle will be challenging, but you’ll be okay.  Especially because it is just the two of you.  If your armor is blasted and you have one gun, with only reflexes and your powers, then this battle will be nothing short of pure nerves.  All your choices have meant something.  If he isn’t under Harbinger’s control, then TIM mutates due to the Reaper upgrades he put in himself.  Harbinger takes them over after he dies, and it’s the same deal.  But the bonus here is the he isn’t NEARLY as powerful as when Harbinger upgraded the hell out of him.  It’s still tough if your armor is blasted, but not as tough.

Then, after you kill The Illusive Man, and you will have options to how brutal you want this kill to be, you are left with two choices.  Though Harbinger doesn’t get so lucky.  Like ME1, when you kill TIM, he loses it and the Normandy and the fleet put that asshole down for good.  The Crucible docks with the Citadel.  Oh, and that’s another thing – you also get to see your upgrades in action with this as well.  Depending on how well you put it together, then the Crucible will only have a couple scratches.  If not, it will look ugly.  But the armor comes off, and it’s full-steam ahead.  The device comes online and you find out that you have a choice.  Neither of these options kill you, unless you are totally blasted.  If you aren’t, then your shields take it and you survive.  If not, you die.  But, you can either have the machine take control of the Reapers, or destroy them.  And depending on what you do, the endings play out much different.  If you destroy them, you see old-fashioned human ingenuity and elbow-grease putting things back together again.  Along with the various other races.  If you choose to take control, then you see Reapers helping out.  But you have a chance with either option to survive this, instead of a ridiculously contrived death.  You aren’t physically obliterated.  The thing that potentially could kill you is the energy flowing out, since you are right at the center of it.

But, after you make your choice, you see the ending play out.  It has bits and pieces showing what happens to your friends that you made.  You see Zaeed finally finding a way that he can live out his retirement – helping the colonies get back on their feet.  You see Kasumi at the place where the Crucible was constructed, stealing some tech they used as she leaves.  She make a joke that Shepard was right, they didn’t check her pockets.  Jack is with her students, getting them drunk (quite illegally, but it’s Jack).  If he survived, Jacob is also there with his girlfriend and several of the scientists who helped build the Crucible, celebrating a job well-done.  Tali is back with her people, helping rebuild Rannoch.  Depending on if you saved them or not, the Geth are helping the Quarians rebuild their home.  Garrus is doing as he said, living the good life from royalties on the vids.  Vega goes back home, with an N7 commendation and a new command waiting for him.  Ashley is back with the Alliance, moving on to her own command.  Or Kaiden, if you saved him on the Virmire mission, and he survived the Retaking of Earth.  Samara is with her daughter, seeing the future with new eyes.

A point that I thought would be interesting is if whether or not you choose to control or destroy the Reapers drastically affects the ending with Javik.  If you choose to save them, then he says that you are a sell-out to all the ideals you stood for and that you have not only disrespected him, but also what he, his people and all the people in this Cycle have fought and died for.  He then leaves, to go and rest with his ancestors, as he said he would do.  But if you destroy them, then he says that you have honored his people’s memory, and you even have the ability to get him to stay with your crew in a dialogue with him.  If you choose to let him go, then he will go to where his ancestors rest and say that he can go into that long night at peace.  His people have been avenged.

You see the Krogan rebuilding their home, if you cured the Genophage.  If you didn’t, then you see their culture dying out.  Asshole.  Wrek and Eve are rallying the clans.  Unless you killed Wrex.  Then it’s Wreav and his warriors being stopped by Eve and the clans who are with her.  If Wrex is alive, and you cured the Genophage, you see him rebuilding Tuchanka.  The Krogan hope is restored.  And of course, Grunt is more than happy to help keep things safe in their new worlds by ruthlessly executing pirates and slavers.

There are also lots of little bits showing what happens to some of your friends, like Bailey retiring, some of your ex-Cerberus friends drinking together and merriment.  Aria on Omega, helping to rebuild.  Major Kirrahe is with the STG, lecturing them about holding the line.  Depending on if you saved the Rachni Queen, you can see the Rachni helping rebuild several worlds, then retreating back, for silence again.  Anderson and Sanders are back together, if they both survived.  They have a flat in London and are happy to end their years together.  Anderson even shows Shepard around.

That brings me to Shepard.  If you got the Citadel DLC, then you see Shepard go back home, and since my last playthrough had me with Liara, romantically, you see the two of them greeting the morning together.  Though if you didn’t have the Citadel DLC, he/she greets the morning on-board the Normandy, the place that they call home.  If Shepard died, then you see a giant memorial statue in his/her honor, with various messages from the friends who survived, and a loved one as well.  It would end with Shepard back on the Normandy, not in the saving-the-galaxy business anymore, but eager to see what there is to see.

So, what do you think?

Until next time, a quote,

“What, ‘job?’  You mean that you all are getting paid for this?”  -Garrus Vakarian, Mass Effect 3

Peace out,

Maverick

In Memory of Zoe

The last post that I did like this, I wrote that I had a feeling that I would be doing many more of these before my time on this world was up.  There are days when I hate being right.  Zoe was a good friend to me.  She wasn’t the kind of friend who comes over and brings you a cold drink when you need it.  She wasn’t the kind of friend who you could nerd out with your newest games with.  She was just a friend who put her head on your lap and looked up at you, just glad to see that you were there.  Zoe, Shield Maiden of the Homestead, was my dog.

Zoe with her puppies. The little white one is Riley.

Confused about the name?  Well, Zoe is a pure-bred lab.  Pure-bred dogs have to have titles.  Since neither of the parentals were good at thinking one up, they put the task to me.  Same with her puppy, Riley.  I had just watched the Lord of the Rings movies, so I thought of a name that was regal and whatnot.  She was a gift to the family after I had surgery.  Cervical fusion.  C1-C3.  The most unpleasant operation of my life, following an accident that has defined my outlook on life, forevermore.  She was such an excitable puppy.  She had a bit of a problem of peeing on the floor whenever people came home.  She just got so happy.  We trained that problem out of her by adulthood.  She wanted to be everybody’s friend.  Much to the chagrin of my cat and confidant – Lizzy.  Lizzy brutalized that puppy, to the point that even as an adult, who could bite her in half, she was afraid of her.  A trait that carried over to her puppy, Riley, when he tried to be her friend.

If there was a more friendly dog, I can’t think of one.  She was everybody’s friend the moment that she met them.  Hitler and Stalin could come in and she would try and be their best friends too.  I loved that quality.  Since the parents live out in the country, long walks around the woods were a favorite activity of hers.  Sometimes, she had a bit of trouble coming back when called.  The adventures were just too fun.

Now, while I say that she was given to me, the truth is that she wasn’t my dog.  Very quickly, it was the father-unit, Dave, who she bonded with.  Make no mistake, she was HIS animal.  Went absolutely everywhere with him.  Working in the garage, she was there.  Working outside, she was there.  In the plow truck clearing the road in the middle of winter, she was there.  She went absolutely everywhere with him.  He would complain, but the truth is, I think he liked having a little helper go everywhere with him.  One of my fondest memories from the old house is how I knew who everybody was by how they walk.  Since the basement was my favorite place to hang out, I could hear everybody walking around upstairs.  Sally (the mother-unit) had a slow and monotonous walk.  Not in a hurry to get anywhere.  The Sister had an angry walk.  For real, even her walk sounded pissed off.  I refuse to believe that she has arches on her feet.  But with the old man, everywhere he went, there was the clickety-click of doggie feet behind him.  For a while, it was Zoe, but then there was Riley.

See? Such a momma’s boy.

Riley is her puppy.  He has been such a momma’s boy.  He doesn’t appear all sad, but then, dogs process death different than people.  I envy that about them sometimes.  Everywhere that Zoe went, he wasn’t far behind.  If she got attention, he had to have some.  There was a constant competition to see who got the old man’s lap while he would watch the news or TV at night.  But the neatest thing to me was when, even though he was so much bigger than her, when Zoe got pissed at him, she could run him down and throw him over, showing that he may be bigger, but she was top dog.  Given how large he got, that was so neat to see.

I got a call a couple months ago that it was confirmed that Zoe had cancer.  In her lymph nodes.  Not a good way to go.  She was having a hard time breathing.  When I got home from college for the summer, I got to hear how labored it was myself.  That was hard.  Her death was nowhere near easy.  She still seemed happy, but she’s a dog.  Dogs always seem happy, if people are being nice to them.  And we were.  By the end, her sense of smell was gone, her eyesight was getting really bad and her breathing was like the bellows.  We knew that it was time to put her to sleep.

I couldn’t be there when it was done.  I had to be at work.  We all have to earn money, right?  Been thinking about it all day.  I get home, hearing that it was done.  Part of me is glad that I wasn’t there to see it.  Too cruel a thing, for me.

When I was a kid, I used to think that animals all had a kind of sacred place that they go when they die.  Some kind of place that only they can find.  Since the parents used to say that none of the cats that they owned died at home, I figured that when they got old, they went off to find that sacred place.  The final resting place of their kind.  I don’t believe in God or anything, but part of me still wishes that I believed that.  And that maybe, someday, I will go to that place, and find my friend again.  If there is an afterlife, I have a feeling that there is a ton of nature to explore.

That’s all I have to say, really.  I lose one more friend.  A friend who I’ll never get back.  Lately, I feel so alone here.  Alone, forevermore.

Normally, I close these things out with a quote from the person who passed, but this was a friend, and I don’t have a quote by them.  So, I will use a quote about the species.  Goodbye, my friend.  I hope that you are in a better place, even if I don’t believe that.

Until next time, a quote,

“Happiness is a warm puppy.”  -Charles M. Schultz

Peace out,

Maverick

Lucien’s Review: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch

Remember in my Bioshock Infinite review how I said that if you thought that that review was late, then you were going to be blown away by my next one?  Well, this game came out in January.  So yeah, this review has been a long time coming.  I knew that if I tried to play this game when I was at college, my GPA would die a quick death.  But now I have gotten to play, and this is my review of a game that combined the brilliance of the animators at Studio Ghibli with the old-school dedication of Level 5 Studios.

When people were first told that Studio Ghibli was throwing its hat into the video game arena, expectations were beyond sky-high.  They were in orbit at Lagrange Point.  Everyone knew that this game would either own in every way or it would fall flat on its ass.  And I will say up-front that this game owns in every way.

I won’t say too much about the plot, because either you have already played this game or I don’t want to spoil too much.  Following a personal tragedy in his life, a young boy named Oliver finds out that if he follows a fairy named Drippy to another world, he can potentially undo what has been done.  Now, Oliver is no hero, but like most Studio Ghibli stories, he is about to find that part of himself that he never knew that he had.  Much in the same vein as Spirited Away, while the story is something that both adults and kids can enjoy, it is very much made for kids.  But while the story is made for kids, the gameplay is a send-up to the childhood of every kid who grew up in the 90′s.

I will say up-front that there is something of a learning curve to being able to play this game well.  It is demanding, but once you learn the various bits and bobs of how things work in combat and outside, it gets simpler.  The curve isn’t too steep, but enough to keep things interesting.  Gameplay is a combination of motion and strategy.  One theme that is very prevalent is how the gameplay in this game is similar to how old Pokemon games were played.  For real, you get these creatures called Familiars.  They function EXACTLY the same way as Pokemon do.  They grow, get more powerful and can learn new attacks.  But since a Familiar can only hold so many at a time, they have to get rid of them from time to time.  Plus, over time, Familiars even have evolutions that are so much like how Pokemon do.  This style of gameplay is so reminiscent and made the inner nostalgia in me just fall in love.

The art design is just awesome.  The world, despite the ridiculousness of the names of various places, is deep and rich.  Despite using cell-shading, they have a surprising level of depth and detail.  And the cutscenes are done with Studio Ghibli’s animation.  Those are breath-taking, as they always are.  For some of the cutscenes were magic is on display, they spared no expense making it look beautiful.  Level 5 knew that they couldn’t half-ass when they are being put next to that.  And they didn’t.  Plus, this world feels so odd, yet familiar.  The creatures are varied and absurd.  Some of them are interesting little puns, even to other anime.  Others are cute and you do feel a little bad for having your adorable little Familiar hacking them up.  But as I said, this was made for kids, so the violence is not gruesome.  It is all kind of cutesy.

With that said, the boss fights are nothing to laugh at.  Strategy plays an unbelievably major role in each of them and with some of the later ones, you will be pushed to your limit trying to figure out what to do.  But you can turn the game to Easy setting, if you are interested in just seeing how the story plays out.  I don’t shame you that.  It’s quite an adventure.  Some boss fights are absurdly strange, making you really put your thinking cap to good use.  Also, since it is a variation of turn-based combat where both you and your enemy are moving and striking at the same time, you have to think on your feet.  It’s a good challenge, if that is what you are looking for.

The acting in this game can take a bit of getting used to.  The original setting before the fantastic world is based in the 50′s, and they do their best to make it feel authentic.  Some of the phrases and puns used seem a little odd, but it still is nice.  Some of the acting is a little wooden, but only with characters who have no major role in the story.  For all the major characters and villains, they got grade-A material.  It is a great mix.  And the characters, though often absurd, are loads of fun.

But the thing that steals the show, to me, is the music.  Since this is partially a Studio Ghibli production, it wouldn’t be something of theirs without Joe Hisaishi doing the score.  With the Tokyo Philharmonic Orchestra at his back, the music for this game is awesome.  It feels epic when it needs to, quiet and peaceful when it doesn’t.  A lot of care was made to make this game feel appropriate to its genre, along with a typical Studio Ghibli production.  Some of the tracks are so nice that I could listen to them over and over again.  It was amazing work.

I really can’t say much more than that without going into creepy and obsessive nerdlove moments.  This is an awesome game.  I haven’t had an RPG this refreshing in a LONG time.  It was something that I needed, and it is something that you all will enjoy as well.  If you haven’t experienced it already, you desperately need to now.

Final Verdict:
9 out of 10

Peace out,

Maverick

Life on Autopilot

Haven’t done one of these posts in a while.  Posts about my own existential view on the world.  There is something about not being wanted, sexually.  Something about being a titan who isn’t all that much in the looks department leaves me getting almost no interest in fooling around.  Who knew?  But there is an upside to it all.  It offers one a chance to see things with a good deal more clarity than most people will ever have.  It’s not their fault that they don’t have clarity.  It’s just biology.

It’s quite simple, really – the human mind is programmed to want sex.  Because we want sex, when we have the chance to have it, we don’t want to lose that.  I know how strong that pull is.  However, House was right when he said that there are two things that people get stupid for – money and sex.  So, when one doesn’t have any interest or options in that department, it opens up an entirely new dichotomy of thought because one doesn’t have to worry about what it all means.

I have figured out why women tend to go for jerks over nice guys.  Don’t worry, ladies, this isn’t going to be me attacking you.  In fact, the reasons that you go for jerks isn’t mean-spirited at all.  I’ve always been of the belief that women are practical.  They like things to work in an efficient way.  They like things to be very direct and straight-forward.  I’ve always admired that.  They generally tend to take the most direct path to get what they want.  The most direct is not always something that required brute force, metaphorically speaking.  The direct path is the path that gets them the most gain for the least amount of effort.  Don’t think I’m calling you lazy.  I’m calling you smart.  Women generally tend to act with their logical processes.  Men, on the other hand, tend to just run in and care about the problems later.

Here’s the difference between nice guys and jerks – jerks get things done.  There is this really enlightening book called “Assholeology.”  It is a comedy book, but if you read it, the real-world applications are actually kind of profound.  Jerks is another word for assholes.  This book has some pretty smart reasons why assholes get ahead.  Jerks have very clear goals.  Jerks have a plan to get those goals.  Jerks don’t care what the consequences are.  Jerks will pursue that goal, regardless.  That is something that I naturally can see why women gravitate toward.  Guys who have a clear direction and are determined is going to be a group that they will get along with, by nature.  It’s the way of the world.

For those ladies who think that I am still attacking you, don’t.  Your reasons aren’t bad ones.  If anything, they’re logical.  They make sense to me.  That doesn’t make it any easier, because I am a nice guy, but I am starting to understand.  With understanding comes peace of mind.  I now understand my role in the world.

Nice guys are the guides to those that they care about.  They are those who give of themselves, knowing that they will never get what they give back.  They are the ones who try with all their might to make others happy, with the understanding that they cannot have that in kind.  The world is just too mean-spirited of a place for that.  This role is thankless, in every sense of the word.  Nice guys are the ones on the bottom who are perpetually kept their by the people who run the world – jerks.

Jerks are powerful.  Jerks don’t let the little issues like whether something is right or wrong stop them from doing whatever the fuck they want.  It is an admirable trait, in many respects.  Part of me wishes that I could be like that.  Life would get a LOT easier.  But it’s not who I am.

So, I continue one.  I keep going down that road, waiting to see what tomorrow has.  Like Urdnot Bakara, I am sustained by hope.  Hope that tomorrow will be better.  And if tomorrow is not better, there is always the next day.  It will be like this until we are ash that has spread across the winds and been forgotten by the world.  Never to be in the minds of the people we worked so hard to save, forevermore.

Being in love taught me something.  When Camille was still alive, her and I were a strange couple.  We both hated the world so much.  Our mutual hatred of it was a common talking point between the two of us.  We fed each other’s depression.  Maybe that is why her death has damaged me as much as it has.  We both were feeding the very worst qualities of the other, and now we are both irrevocably tainted by this.  Well, just me, now.  She has passed on from this world.  If there is something after all of this, I mean to find her again.  I mean to say sorry.  Sorry that things got so bad between us, toward the end.  Sure, she lied to me, betrayed my trust.  But why be angry, in the end?  Not worth it.

I live life on autopilot.  No particular direction.  No particular destination.  I see my life as a highway across a natural landscape.  Though the landscape changes from time to time as I walk down it, this road continues onward.  I have no idea where this road will take me, but I keep going.  Sometimes the landscape is beautiful, and I sit and enjoy it for as long as I can.  Other times, it is lifeless and I feel very alone.  But the road continues, and we continue on it, as that point inevitably comes where we no longer continue.  Where our ability to go on living ceases.  I do not lament that.  My morality is not something that frightens me.  It is the score that all of us get to settle up with after a while.

So, when I go, I tell people – do not mourn for me.  Life is too short for that.  Instead, when that day does come that my end approaches, take a moment and remember what I did.  Then, let me slide from your memory as the thoughts of living take over.  I am one of those people who is somehow very easy for people to forget, even though I am a titan.  I take that for what I will.

Until next time, a quote,

“Wheel of life.  Popular Salarian concept.  Similar to human Hinduism in focus on reincarnation.  Appealing to see life as endless.  Fix mistakes in next life.  Learn, adapt, improve.  Refuse to believe life ends here.  Too wasteful.  Have more to offer.  Mistakes to fix.  Cannot end here.”  -Mordin Solus, Mass Effect 2

Peace out,

Maverick