My fakemon dump

[feather-flower]

So I love the idea of toying with that. And especially, thinking about how these beings exist. And, how they experience us.

This does make it clearer where you're coming from then.

It's one thing to edit something that exists, it's another to create something that's completely you.

For sure!
May you get lasting fulfillment from it when the project's done, Zorafim!

Funny you mention him! He's who I wrote that schizophrenia song for! I later added audio I heard from a video of what it's like to experience schizophrenia to make it hit harder.

Is that so?
Hopefully he liked the end-result, but this bit of background info does imply that maybe there should be a warning to accompany the song.
Wouldn't want to catalyze someone to undergo a mental-health event if your composition "hit" them too "hard".

Oh god. You're talking about Stadium 2.
That part made me cry so hard.
I have it recorded if you want to see me breaking down.

Hmmm, wasn't there a Challenge Cup in both of the Stadium titles?

Even if it only existed in the Gold & Silver era, then I still would NOT want to watch such an unhappy occurance.

And I'm truly sorry that you experienced such a strain from it.

I like it in concept, but when you're given a pokemon with bad moves and no STAB...man that leaves to a frustrating experience.

There definitely were scenarios where the options available led to theoretically unwinnable dilemmas.

But despite that, I personally found these randomized modes to be the most interesting.

And in Stadium 2 you could do this in 2 Player as well.

I haven't done much with Battle Frontier! I love Stadium so I should love that stuff. Pokemon has a good battle system and it's a shame that's wasted on an easy game.

As already stated, the Battle Factory was what I enjoyed about the Frontier back when I played Emerald Version, specifically because of the randomized team selections.

The first time I reached the "boss" of the Factory, the confrontation lasted several hours, and ultimately my Cloyster used Struggle to the point of fainting against a Lanturn whose ability was Water Absorb, so because we both had Leftovers & a Shell Bell, neither myself or the computer could actually claim victory.

Yet, despite losing that encounter, it remains memorable.

I can see that too. If you're surrounded by toxic individuals who just tear down everyone around you, then it's going to be difficult to grow. I'm thinking of a lot of online communities

Circumstances like that definitely don't help, but even when other competitors are practioners of "good sportsmanship" and DO make the atmosphere of any given sport more "encouraging", there is still an underlying issue when stoking the drive to dominate others.

For instance, a friend of mine who moved away, used to be very passionate about fighting games.

He actually became part of a little circle that harbored good intentions for each other and would actively teach those who were struggling with their preferred games.

However, you have to realize that those guys were having a good time making virtual characters beat each other up.

Nobody real was getting hurt.

Yet, the activity was still about violence.

So, even if I refrain from speculating about things on more serious subjects, then it still seems to me that their "enthusiasm for self-improvement" was being misplaced.

But again, where our efforts would be most beneficial is almost as contentious as "what's the meaning of life".

Thus, I held my tongue and tried to just be happy that my friend was happy and enjoyed our conversation the best I could, despite my qualms with competitive attitudes and total disinterest in actually playing anything anymore.

I'm thinking of a lot of online communities, like my experience with WoW. Just makes me want to quit and sequester myself...

Sincere condolences that you went through that Zorafim.

May any lingering psychic trauma be healing within you.

Truly.

I do feel the need to improve. It has lead to a lot of unhealthy things.

In general, the things that competitions of all kinds causes people to do, can easily result in more "unhealthy" behavior for the sake of achieving whatever goal.

Even people just obsessively going to the gym, might be physically "healthy", yet harboring DEEPLY unhealthy neurosises because of social competitiveness.

Such stuff might be totally petty and trivial, yet all-consuming internally for them.

It's not easy for me to pull from what I want to do at the moment, and that has lead to problems with me in gaming. I want to make a plan, and follow that plan, and if my experiences don't line up with that, I run into issues.
And for sure it shows in my writing. Every conflict and motivation I have, comes from the desire for better. Maybe I need to reflect, and see what I can do if I'm surrounded by enough.

To relate directly with you here, it is also clunky for me to deviate from what I expected when life veers in different directions.

This is still an issue, even after mostly letting go of long-term planning and trying to live each day as "presently" as possible.

Haven't figured this out, but atleast there's less stress (to a degree) than in the past.

Reflection is always recommended though.

I wish I could change your mind with this. I think romhacking and indie development in general is the most fun interesting experiences I've had with gaming. It offers a way for the average person to create his own work, and you see an unsterilized vision that someone saw through to the end, even if it's a short end.

Firstly, I believe you when you say it's the most fun you've had with games.

But the fundamental issue is that I stopped enjoying games.

Even before trying to live more meaningfully all-around.

Introspection led me to realize what I've said before about games not offering the interactions I'd like to have in their fictional realms.

And virtual experiences only serve as substitutes for the types of experiences I wanted to have for real, anyway.

Which led me to focus on my own creativity for years.

That never arrived at any satisfactory conclusion either.

But along the way, I gained insights.

Some of which, felt worth sharing.

Hence registering here at PSO-W last year to offer what I could.

That causes this weird predicament, where I have a frame-of-mind to reference things that are no longer relevant to me now, yet still matter to me in a past-tense way.

Worse than that, I lack any other commonalities for conversing with most people.

This is ostracizing me immensely, even when I'm meeting more new people outside on the streets than ever in my earlier years.

But no fulfilling connection with them seems possible.

And that unfortunate truth also reinforces the lessons that Gautama Buddha taught.

Sooooooooo.... again, pardon me for not wanting to play.

That's going to be an interesting comparison, because a lot of his motivation does come from the Christian god. If you have problems with him, you'll have problems with Zorael, since he is purely his underling.

It is a problem with the act of creation itself and even my own creativity demonstrates how flawed foundations continue to perpetuate. (And even degenerate, since deities purportedly create walking-talking living-things, while humans create imitations of life in inert mediums.)

I remain unconvinced. I think the best world is one where we can create and express. And even if we run out of things to create and express, when we can no longer optimize, just the act of doing it brings joy.

What you say about Final Fantasy's position, is not what was expressed by Gautama Buddha, or Jesus Christ for that matter.

So even if that game's position was "settling for the world we've got", the supposed saviors from two millenia ago were urging people to reach a new spiritual standard and that also meant not being part of the ways of this world.

And despite my attempts at renunciation, I'm just not finding the right path forward, when the world still surrounds me despite detaching from it as much as I can while still alive.

Seguing to your personal stance, there is a degree of truth to it, considering how drawing has helped.

However, the joy you describe isn't sounding the same as my experience of tedium followed by relief at accomplishing something that can be shared with others.

That has only gone so far in providing purpose.

For me, atleast.

I certainly would find it heartening to learn that you get a more lasting satisfaction from creation & expression.

And if you get authentic joy, then I am especially glad it does that for you, Zorafim.

So to get right at the heart of your argument, is it better to have a flawed existence, or no existence at all?

On a personal level, noone would want to hear how I feel about that.

But because I also realize that my stance itself is confused & flawed, is why I've given such credence to what certain saviours have supposedly said.

Siddhartha Gautama was very clear that annihilation & non-existence were not even possible.

That the desire for non-existence was yet-another compulsion that sends us back into the samsaric cycle of death & rebirth, so it defeats the point & just forces us to start over, possibly in an even worse circumstance.

Hence his urging all who listened, to unbind themselves from all defilements & become established in meditation to reach the only unperturbed state, which he called "nibbana" or "nirvana".

Doing so, supposedly ceases suffering in this life and stops the cycle of rebirth once the body stops functioning.

so if he ended up wanting to be a painter, and not being able to do that, that's a critical flaw.

It's certainly a dilemma.

But another question my story opens is, are his creations really alive?

***snip***

So, is that life? And does that life deserve to exist in a way outside of its design?

You do pose some significant questions here, but the answers dictated within fiction won't necessarily apply to reality.

And vice-versa.

Not to mention, if I was to give any answer, it would already be limited to human understanding of life, which can't even agree about other living things we can see on this planet.... so I'll just opt out & refrain from speculating.

You've gained wisdom with your age. You're starting to develop world views.

The concern is whether those world-views are aligned with the ultimate truth or if they are merely another deluded distortion.

That's growth for me then. I believe one should make the best decision we can with the information we have, and minimize suffering while maximizing joy while doing so.

Min/Max-ing of suffering & joy, eh?

There is some ignorance of "Oh, crabs don't feel pain when you toss them in boiling water". But that seems rather willful to me.

Not only that, but even if crustaceans DID exist without any pain stimulus sensation....

....then it would still be cruel to decide that its continued-life mattered less than one's fleeting appetite that could be satisfied in a myriad of other ways that did not infringe another lifeform's existence.

I could make the argument of, there's more good made for me seeing that spider in a terrarium than bad for the spider being in there, so I should do it. But the fact was I was making a decision on incomplete information, and I'll use that to better optimize future decisions.

This is why I dislike "debate", because a person can make an argument for anything, and even sound convincing, but just because I also lack the right knowledge to counter your points.... doesn't actually mean that the spider should be caged.

Freedom in general is a delicate thing to discuss.

So, ideally, all I can say is that all spiders should be free.

BUT they too are predators, which even as an instinctual animal is a life-or-death issue for their prey.

Which then goes back to my problems with creation, whether or not it could be justified somehow by higher entities.

Saying that, it becomes futile for me to even try communicating, so I'll just drop this train-of-thought, if that's okay.

Thanks. I didn't want to give out false information, and also I didn't feel like researching at the moment. I figured it would be hebrew, with old testament and all that. But you never know. I could say something comes from a chinese word, then learn that "Chinese" is actually two different languages. So...

You're welcome. And I also don't want to give out false information, hence often stating "purportedly" and "supposedly" with regards to the ancient advice brought up in these posts, because no matter how much those spiritual paths have resonated with me in the last 6 years, I can't PROVE very much at all. And that even includes mundane things, nevermind anything mystical or transcendent.

So, I do fully comprehend why you didn't specify recklessly.

And it wasn't troubling to use the search engine myself, so no worries at all.

But especially your issue of sapience is notable. If you create and fail, it is better to fail with something unvaluable than something valuable. If something is able to suffer and you cause it to unnecessarily, that is far more of a failure than if it is incapable of suffering.

Again, this all stems from empathy.

Especially if I was "created".

Even so, it also must be mentioned that Yeshua/Jesus allegedly taught with an emphasis on forgiveness.

And that forgiveness would assuredly extend to even the artificer of a flawed universe.

I could argue there's value in that, but I do also want more stories where people are having a nice time. Maybe that's why I gravitate to children's shows. Even those have some conflict, though much more minor.

The problem wouldn't be that there was "no value", but whether the "value" generated from it was worth subjecting those who suffered from it, to it.

Because it has occured over & over, that a dismal story was conceived to illustrate a life-lesson through fiction.

Many fairy-tales for children originated with grisly versions that acted to dissuade listeners from making the same mistakes.

Which, in a flawed world like this one, probably has helped actual people.

But again, for me, there is an inherent qualm with this approach now that I've allowed the possibility of spiritual reality into my life.

Because I certainly don't want to live a life that was literally created for the express purpose of saying: "See kids? Don't be like that guy."

And he hardships endured by the Buddha and the Messiah sounded even more torturous, despite them being the epitome of role-models.

It would just be nice if existence was already so perfectly pleasurable AND meaningful, that simulated substitutes were never even invented...

But I don't want that sentiment to be the next thing twisted, because I'm sure anything I ever say can be made into an unwanted parody of what was wished....

Thus, it's probably time to end this post.

(May you have a pleasant Full Moon Night this evening, and a Happy Independence Day tomorrow, Zorafim. And everyone else too!)