- AKA
- The Man, V
In this forum tradition we give a specific member a thread for a week in which they can share whatever information they want about themselves, then answer whatever questions the public asks them. It's sort of an expansion on the "Let's get to know each other" thread by, well, giving one member the spotlight. More information on the concept can be found here.
This week's participant is [member=9]The Man[/member], who has elected to share the following information:
This week's participant is [member=9]The Man[/member], who has elected to share the following information:
Feel free to ask whatever you'd like. This thread will be up for approximately a week before we move onto our next participant.Family: Parents still together. Grandparents all dead. Two aunts, two uncles, several cousins, no siblings, one dog.
Sexuality: Almost exclusively gynephile (i.e., attracted to women). Describing myself as "heterosexual" is problematic; see next response.
Gender: Complicated. I generally identify somewhere somewhere between "male" and "female" (sometimes referred to as "genderqueer" or other terms), but some days I'm more likely to feel like I don't have any gender identity whatsoever ("agender"). I guess this would also make me gender-fluid, although unlike many such individuals I don't bounce between feeling exclusively male and feeling exclusively female. Regardless, I'm certainly transgender, which was not a fun realisation to come to at all. A lengthier description of my struggles with the issue can be found here.
Metaphysical views: Ignosticism. Furthermore, I submit that if a deity (or deities) existed, it/they would be beyond human comprehension. As for religious background, I was raised in Christianity but have Jewish ancestry as well and culturally identify with pieces of both religions as well as pieces of various Eastern religions (Zen, Taoism) and even weird Western things like Discordianism. I'd probably be identified as a "Jew of no religion" in one of those Pew surveys. To summarise my stances briefly, we don't know, and we can't know, at least within the current scope of human knowledge, but I see no credible evidence to speculate in favour of the existence of anything supernatural. That said, I try to follow many teachings of a number of religious figures, like Jesus, Buddha, Lao-Tzu, and Tolstoy, but I'm horrendously bad at it.
Political views: Anarchism/libertarian socialism. A lot of my stances on U.S. politics as of two years ago are outlined here. They haven't changed much; I've been anarchist for around ten years now, and find it unlikely that my overarching world view will shift substantially, although my stances on individual issues may alter as new information crosses my path or as new developments occur in world politics. To summarise my stances briefly, governments are at best a necessary evil and at worst an intolerable one, and people work best when they work for themselves. Government protection is currently necessary only so far as it keeps us from abusing one another or the environment or from being severely abused by misfortune or ignorance (and should not be necessary forever), and corporations should be abolished and replaced with worker-directed syndicates. An excellent introduction to anarchism can be found at TV Tropes.
Employment: Currently I work retail, but I'm handing in my two weeks' notice tomorrow, in part to focus more on my studies and in part because I hated my job and was on the verge of getting fired. They would have been out of line to do so and I could've gotten a disabled advocate to challenge them, but it would've probably resulted in a hostile work environment, and it just seems like too much trouble for a job I didn't like in the first place.
Psychological issues: I'm on the obsessive-compulsive and autistic spectrums. I also suffer from ADHD and sporadic depression, the latter of which is likely caused by these issues and my gender issues.
Goals, in no particular order:
Miscellaneous interests:
- Self-actualisation/self-sufficiency/finding fulfilling work.
- Finding a way to have a functional relationship with my cocktail of psychological problems.
- Educating the masses.
- Finishing my degree.
- Revolution.
Obligatory Final Fantasy section:
- Music. For listening I'm particularly partial to progressive rock, metal, and soundtracks. I also have interests in the production end and in ripping and collecting vinyl (the last of which I am too broke for these days), and I also play piano and write my own music.
- Fiction (particularly science fiction and fantasy) - books and television are the media that typically have the largest impacts on me.
- My tastes in games tend towards the old school, though I am blown away by the Wii U Zelda. Super Metroid is probably objectively the greatest game of all time, and this isn't nostalgia talking because I first played it in 2011. Subjectively, it's tied for first with FFVI (which is also an objectively great game, and which I also played long after it came out) on my list of Favourite Games Ever.
Other miscellaneous stuff:
- I've only played about half of the numbered entries in the Final Fantasy series enough to evaluate them. I'd rank them VI, IX, V, VII, IV, X. (Which isn't to say that I dislike X - I wouldn't have finished it or done all the monster arena stuff if I disliked it - but it has greater flaws than the rest of them. There are also some days where I'd swap the placement of V and IX on my list, and ditto for IV and VII). This is roughly how I would rank the soundtracks as well, although I might swap my ranking of VII's and V's.
- The only major weakness of FFVI is the battle system, which is inferior to that of several other games in the series (though also by no means the weakest in the series). Other than that, it is by far the best of the games in the series I've played.
- FFV has far and away the best battle system of the main numbered entries.
- I feel that the Compilation of FFVII and endless parade of Ultimania-related material has in many ways degraded some of the original appeal of FFVII. A large part of the original appeal of the game was that a lot of it was ambiguous and open to interpretation. Now every last detail of the plot has been indexed in exhaustive detail and there is no room left for individual interpretation. Much of what made FFVII unique in the series has been squeezed away, which makes me wonder if the writers at Square even understood the appeal of their own product. While I would still rank FFVII's quality about as highly as I did when I first played it, the amount of enjoyment I get out of the game has decreased substantially.
- I also think FFVII would have been a much more interesting game if Shinra was the main antagonist. The opening sequence of the game in Midgar is one of the most flawless portions of a video game I have ever played. In general, the further the story diverges from the themes established in the opening of the game, the less interesting I find it.
Incomplete lists of some stuff I like: (more complete lists can be found in my profile)
- I dated [member=339]Selphie Tilmitt[/member] for close to three years several years before this forum was a thing. We are possibly meeting up again in the summer but I don't know if this means anything romantic will be happening. Probably not; I can't speak for her, but I'm too emotionally damaged.
- I have been celibate for several years, which seems to bother other people a lot more than it bothers me these days. I've sort of come to accept it. Being transgender makes it a bit difficult to find romance.
- I also have my own forum, Fool's Gold, although it is closed and will likely remain so until my life is less of a mess (or until the other staff are ready to run it without my assistance). I also post on two other forums called Freethought Forum and Eyes on Final Fantasy. I would recommend the former of these to almost anyone but I am not sure I can recommend the latter in its current state. I also adminned FFOF back before it died, and for those of you who knew me back in the ACF days I was a global mod there towards the end. I also adminned a bunch of other communities none of you probably care about (except maybe FCF), most of which are merged into FG as archives now (including FCF).
- I used to be really interested in game design. I designed my own levels for Mario games with pencil and paper and later started building a scenario for Marathon that I will probably never finish because my ambition far exceeded my grasp. I still would like to create more games, but I simply don't have the time for such a large undertaking.
- I still have some ideas for a fantasy novel I may write if I ever figure out a way to organise the noise in my head.
- My signature and avatar are from a game of Tomodachi Life that a friend on Eyes on Final Fantasy ran. The curly-haired afro dude is meant to represent me (although my Mii in the game was a bit of a dick). I have a rotating signature image because I couldn't pick one image as my favourite. The large circle image with me up in the air includes, clockwise from left, Miss Mae (forum member), Jinx (forum member), Hanji (Attack on Titan), Helena (Orphan Black), Newmani (forum member), Lonely Paper Star (forum member), Christmas (forum member), and Lightning (Final Fantasy XIII). The circle around the heart-shaped flower field includes, clockwise from top left, fire_of_avalon (forum member), Helena, Lonely Paper Star, noxious.sunshine (Cher Horowitz here), maybee, Fufu/Fujiko (forum member), Quistis (FFVIII), and Miss Mae. This should give away who is in all the other images as well (though it's usually PaperStar or Helena).
- Authors: Douglas Adams; Isaac Asimov; William Blake; Roberto Bolaño; Jorge Luis Borges; Neil Gaiman; Aldous Huxley; Ursula K. Le Guin; Madeleine L'Engle; George R. R. Martin; China Miéville; Alan Moore; Grant Morrison; George Orwell; Terry Pratchett; Thomas Pynchon; Kim Stanley Robinson; J. K. Rowling; William Shakespeare; Kurt Vonnegut; Robert Anton Wilson.
- Films: 12 Monkeys; Amélie; Blade Runner; Blazing Saddles; The Big Lebowski; District 9; Dr. Strangelove; The Good, the Bad and the Ugly; Gravity; High Fidelity; Inception; Kill Bill; Kung Fu Hustle; Life of Brian; Monty Python and the Holy Grail; Network; Pan's Labyrinth; The Prestige; Pulp Fiction; Serenity; Seven Samurai; This Is Spinal Tap; Up; The Usual Suspects; Wall-E.
- Shows: Agent Carter; Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.; Archer; Arrested Development; Battlestar Galactica; The Blacklist; Doctor Who; Firefly; Futurama; Game of Thrones; Last Week Tonight with John Oliver; Lost; Mad Men; Monty Python's Flying Circus; Orphan Black; Scandal; Sherlock; first ten or so seasons of The Simpsons (though I still enjoy scattered episodes beyond this); True Detective; The West Wing; The Wire.
- Music: too many to list. Godspeed You! Black Emperor is my all-time favourite. My last.fm is probably the most reliable source of information about my taste, though you might want to look at my top 100 rather than my top 50 for a fully accurate picture. Additionally, both my last 12 months' charts and my overall charts are worth perusing, and the charts on the right (which display artists sorted by length spent listening) are more indicative of my taste than the official last.fm charts.
- Video games: Bubble Bobble; Chrono Cross; Chrono Trigger; Dragon Quest V; Final Fantasy V; Final Fantasy VI; Final Fantasy IX; The Legend of Zelda; A Link to the Past; Marathon trilogy; NetHack; Seiken Densetsu 3; Suikoden II; Super Mario All-Stars; Super Mario World; Super Metroid; Yoshi's Island; Tetris. I also enjoy ROM hacks and third-party game mods a lot, and I enjoy watching tool-assisted speedruns, including tool-assisted speedruns of ROM hacks. If I had more free time I might even consider learning how to make some of my own.