4228: Skull Heart Arrhythmia
I have discerned two vaguely related things. In some order [perhaps recapping stuff from prior posts, but I don't know who's read what so bear with me]:
Pandemic [2.5] is basically a race to kill everyone in the world, for what reason. I have found that the surest, though not necessarily fastest, way to accomplish this is to have* and pick all the "under the radar" symptoms--coughing, sneezing, rhinorrhea [runny nose], perspiration--and save the ones where it's obvious someone's sick until most of the world is already infected [kidney failure, heart attack, even conjunctivitis/"pink eye"]. Also, Cold/Drug/Heat/Moisture Capacity to ensure the disease gets to and withstands places like Greenland [harder for me than Madagascar--supposedly the most paranoid of the countries and the name of the hardest difficulty], and "Airborne" infection ASAP. Achievement-unlocked Traits make it easier, as well--Endurer makes a vaccine harder to be discovered, Swarmer makes non-human carriers 100% more effective. [I haven't unlocked any others, but one includes literally making people's heads explode, which I'm certain isn't a real thing that happens without explosives...]
*It took me a couple of games to realize some of the symptoms aren't available in every game, 'cause I was annoyed that sneezing was missing for one.
But.
Playing this made me realize [to a greater depth] what others must see in The Hunger Games--part of THG's initial success was viral marketing, part of its staying power is the timing of its release [only The Avengers is real competition at the moment, starting a month later] plus the novelty [unfortunately] of the protagonist being a strong female character that doesn't rely on sexiness to win the audience [though they doll her up on two occasions as per the narrative]...
...but part is, I suspect, the horror element where there is a government that enforces and televises kids killing each other. Sensible people would be disgusted by the premise alone, but there are too many folks who believe--since it's "just fiction"--it's okay to watch, and they do so with much gusto, vicariously living through the psychopaths on-screen.
I guess that's okay as a "release", but for some people, that just gives them ideas and leaves them wanting MORE. I mean, that Trayvon Martin gun range targets even exist, much less SOLD OUT, is a terrifying testament to the depths of human depravity. It's sort of a fine line: sure, plenty of people get a certain schadenfreude from watching/making horrible things happen to people FICTIONALLY [playing Grand Theft Auto, e.g.] so they don't have to ACTUALLY go postal and kill everyone when they Hulk out, but plenty of people become desensitized to it, too, and seek a more intense experience, because the initial thrill doesn't quite do it anymore.
Sometimes they're just wired that way =/ [in which case, what they watch isn't really a big difference]
I'm about 66% certain in my hypothesis, because while I'm not really eager to read the next two books in their entirety to confirm my suspicions, what spoilers I read [and certain reviews] lead me to believe it really isn't too much more than a senseless spectacle of death. It would be one thing if it was a reenactment of some political thing, but the fantastic [read: "fantasy", not "excellent"] scenario prevents too much more than indulging on bad vibes--you know, the "villain kills childhood friend, hero kills villain" trope and all. Like the series is just about making people mad.
[Including the whole weird racist "Districts 11 and 12 are the ghettos filled with black people" that somehow becomes even more racist by racists turning that around to "we can't possibly sympathize with black people, they're supposed to be white!--and yet in the ghetto" thing, which is kinda funny but not funny enough to overcome my distaste for the trilogy.]
I mean, unless the "hitch" is that it's My So-Called Life if they had to kill each other. Which explains why Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer were both recruited for blurbs for the back cover 9_9
[speaking of, someone put ALL THE TWILIGHT BOOKS in the breakroom today... boy, just turning that shelf into a cesspool of bad bookery, eh?]
[[tho out of fairness, I'm enjoying the breakroom copy of 21: Bringing Down the House despite their casting the Asian kid as a white boy and the white guy as Lawrence Fishburne for the movie, and I liked the dog book, which is a post I really need to do at some point]]
But the thing ultimately concludes with the Babies Ever After, which the review linked above points out as "many years later, he talked her into having the kids she didn't want, so much so she doesn't even bother to name them" =p which is bullshit, 'cause one of the biggest joy of spawning is naming the things!
Also, pretty much everyone other than the Love Triangle is dead. So I guess they're Madagascar.
Also also, I could be overthinking everything, as per usual, but dunno.
...okay, I'm officially gagging on the series now =p
[I've also figured out that movies, by and large, are third-person--it's incredibly rare to have a good movie that's entirely first-person, even opening that up to "third-person viewing a single character", since even Harry Potter broke away to scenes like Hermione and Ron alone in the Chamber of Secrets... but that's a different post yet again]
So anyway, don't spread your sick, you might infect the entire planet and cause the end of humanity as we know it =p
Pandemic [2.5] is basically a race to kill everyone in the world, for what reason. I have found that the surest, though not necessarily fastest, way to accomplish this is to have* and pick all the "under the radar" symptoms--coughing, sneezing, rhinorrhea [runny nose], perspiration--and save the ones where it's obvious someone's sick until most of the world is already infected [kidney failure, heart attack, even conjunctivitis/"pink eye"]. Also, Cold/Drug/Heat/Moisture Capacity to ensure the disease gets to and withstands places like Greenland [harder for me than Madagascar--supposedly the most paranoid of the countries and the name of the hardest difficulty], and "Airborne" infection ASAP. Achievement-unlocked Traits make it easier, as well--Endurer makes a vaccine harder to be discovered, Swarmer makes non-human carriers 100% more effective. [I haven't unlocked any others, but one includes literally making people's heads explode, which I'm certain isn't a real thing that happens without explosives...]
*It took me a couple of games to realize some of the symptoms aren't available in every game, 'cause I was annoyed that sneezing was missing for one.
But.
Playing this made me realize [to a greater depth] what others must see in The Hunger Games--part of THG's initial success was viral marketing, part of its staying power is the timing of its release [only The Avengers is real competition at the moment, starting a month later] plus the novelty [unfortunately] of the protagonist being a strong female character that doesn't rely on sexiness to win the audience [though they doll her up on two occasions as per the narrative]...
...but part is, I suspect, the horror element where there is a government that enforces and televises kids killing each other. Sensible people would be disgusted by the premise alone, but there are too many folks who believe--since it's "just fiction"--it's okay to watch, and they do so with much gusto, vicariously living through the psychopaths on-screen.
I guess that's okay as a "release", but for some people, that just gives them ideas and leaves them wanting MORE. I mean, that Trayvon Martin gun range targets even exist, much less SOLD OUT, is a terrifying testament to the depths of human depravity. It's sort of a fine line: sure, plenty of people get a certain schadenfreude from watching/making horrible things happen to people FICTIONALLY [playing Grand Theft Auto, e.g.] so they don't have to ACTUALLY go postal and kill everyone when they Hulk out, but plenty of people become desensitized to it, too, and seek a more intense experience, because the initial thrill doesn't quite do it anymore.
Sometimes they're just wired that way =/ [in which case, what they watch isn't really a big difference]
I'm about 66% certain in my hypothesis, because while I'm not really eager to read the next two books in their entirety to confirm my suspicions, what spoilers I read [and certain reviews] lead me to believe it really isn't too much more than a senseless spectacle of death. It would be one thing if it was a reenactment of some political thing, but the fantastic [read: "fantasy", not "excellent"] scenario prevents too much more than indulging on bad vibes--you know, the "villain kills childhood friend, hero kills villain" trope and all. Like the series is just about making people mad.
[Including the whole weird racist "Districts 11 and 12 are the ghettos filled with black people" that somehow becomes even more racist by racists turning that around to "we can't possibly sympathize with black people, they're supposed to be white!--and yet in the ghetto" thing, which is kinda funny but not funny enough to overcome my distaste for the trilogy.]
I mean, unless the "hitch" is that it's My So-Called Life if they had to kill each other. Which explains why Stephen King and Stephanie Meyer were both recruited for blurbs for the back cover 9_9
[speaking of, someone put ALL THE TWILIGHT BOOKS in the breakroom today... boy, just turning that shelf into a cesspool of bad bookery, eh?]
[[tho out of fairness, I'm enjoying the breakroom copy of 21: Bringing Down the House despite their casting the Asian kid as a white boy and the white guy as Lawrence Fishburne for the movie, and I liked the dog book, which is a post I really need to do at some point]]
But the thing ultimately concludes with the Babies Ever After, which the review linked above points out as "many years later, he talked her into having the kids she didn't want, so much so she doesn't even bother to name them" =p which is bullshit, 'cause one of the biggest joy of spawning is naming the things!
Also, pretty much everyone other than the Love Triangle is dead. So I guess they're Madagascar.
Also also, I could be overthinking everything, as per usual, but dunno.
...okay, I'm officially gagging on the series now =p
[I've also figured out that movies, by and large, are third-person--it's incredibly rare to have a good movie that's entirely first-person, even opening that up to "third-person viewing a single character", since even Harry Potter broke away to scenes like Hermione and Ron alone in the Chamber of Secrets... but that's a different post yet again]
So anyway, don't spread your sick, you might infect the entire planet and cause the end of humanity as we know it =p