"Jesus loves you," supernatural bullshit, the Beach type of magic
To start with, an interesting flier appeared at my door a few weeks ago. It was for some local pizza place, but what really struck me was this:
Click on the image to see more of the ad.
"Jesus loves you"? WTF? Not only is it in a pizza ad, it's right in the middle of the address! My fiance and I both got a good laugh out of this wildly out-of-place religious sentiment.
Which reminds me, a post on childfree about the infamous Jack Chick tracts got me to thinking: the expression "God/Jesus's free gift of love/salvation" really bothers me. It's just creepy: it makes salvation sound like signing up with Columbia House. "Act now and receive the gift of God's love for just pennies a day! Operators are standing by!" But then again, I'm an asshole. I don't believe in angels, demons, or possession. (For the record, I also don't believe in goblins, vampires, and zombies.) These fantastical creatures make for great stories, but I really think they're just figments of the imagination. You know, when D&D players pretend to cast spells and fight the undead, people accuse them of not being able to separate fantasy from reality. These same people believe in demonic possession and freaking guardian angels. Pot, meet kettle.
On that tangent, I think people need fantasy, the unknown. Humanity has been obsessed with spirits and supernatural forces since its inception. Why should we stop now? It's fun to imagine having an all-knowing, unseen creator that watches over you and has all the answers. It's fun to dream about being abducted by aliens and telling everyone about your experience. It's fun to think you've seen a ghost, have a guardian angel, or even that you can do magic. It makes you feel special, and in the case of religion, it helps you cope with events you can't explain or control. I swear, I feel myself sliding closer and closer toward Atheism simply because I don't care a whole lot for supernatural bullshit.
In addition to Emerald Dragon and Black Lagoon, I'm now working on a game called Ancient Magic for Gideon Zhi. The only problem is that it's almost entirely in kana. (I think there's roughly 5 kanji in the whole game.) Now, some of you might think this makes translating the game easier. It does not. For instance, a few days ago I was trying to translate the types of magic in the game, one of which is はま. So I go to Jeffrey's Japanese-English dictionary, which has most common words (and some uncommon ones). Lo and behold, the only はま I see is 浜 (beach). So I think, "Great, it's the Beach type of magic. Maybe it lets you summon surfboards or something." :P Of course, when I looked in the Goo Dictionary, I found another word with the reading はま, 破魔. So I'm thinking of going with "Exorcism" or something similar. As you can see from this example of my ineptness as a translator, kanji is always your friend.
Click on the image to see more of the ad.
"Jesus loves you"? WTF? Not only is it in a pizza ad, it's right in the middle of the address! My fiance and I both got a good laugh out of this wildly out-of-place religious sentiment.
Which reminds me, a post on childfree about the infamous Jack Chick tracts got me to thinking: the expression "God/Jesus's free gift of love/salvation" really bothers me. It's just creepy: it makes salvation sound like signing up with Columbia House. "Act now and receive the gift of God's love for just pennies a day! Operators are standing by!" But then again, I'm an asshole. I don't believe in angels, demons, or possession. (For the record, I also don't believe in goblins, vampires, and zombies.) These fantastical creatures make for great stories, but I really think they're just figments of the imagination. You know, when D&D players pretend to cast spells and fight the undead, people accuse them of not being able to separate fantasy from reality. These same people believe in demonic possession and freaking guardian angels. Pot, meet kettle.
On that tangent, I think people need fantasy, the unknown. Humanity has been obsessed with spirits and supernatural forces since its inception. Why should we stop now? It's fun to imagine having an all-knowing, unseen creator that watches over you and has all the answers. It's fun to dream about being abducted by aliens and telling everyone about your experience. It's fun to think you've seen a ghost, have a guardian angel, or even that you can do magic. It makes you feel special, and in the case of religion, it helps you cope with events you can't explain or control. I swear, I feel myself sliding closer and closer toward Atheism simply because I don't care a whole lot for supernatural bullshit.
In addition to Emerald Dragon and Black Lagoon, I'm now working on a game called Ancient Magic for Gideon Zhi. The only problem is that it's almost entirely in kana. (I think there's roughly 5 kanji in the whole game.) Now, some of you might think this makes translating the game easier. It does not. For instance, a few days ago I was trying to translate the types of magic in the game, one of which is はま. So I go to Jeffrey's Japanese-English dictionary, which has most common words (and some uncommon ones). Lo and behold, the only はま I see is 浜 (beach). So I think, "Great, it's the Beach type of magic. Maybe it lets you summon surfboards or something." :P Of course, when I looked in the Goo Dictionary, I found another word with the reading はま, 破魔. So I'm thinking of going with "Exorcism" or something similar. As you can see from this example of my ineptness as a translator, kanji is always your friend.