Outside, but you’ll have to touch grass to reach it.

I don’t know who writes it, and I wouldn’t exactly call it a masterpiece (though to be fair, I am reading translations,) but it is a fun premise. I started reading it because it’s one of the few sources of official Hatsune Miku lore (though ultimately everything is canon,) but the stories focus more on the human characters, with the vocaloids mostly just being there to support. Still, the stories can be compelling.

At this point, half the reason I’m still reading is for the human characters, and the other half is to find details on the premise, such as how it works with thermodynamics, whether the cafe world has an economy, how biological the vocaloids are (do they need to eat?), and how long it’s going to be before anyone finds out that their bestie/sibling/trainer/etc has their own virtual world too (they don’t do a great job of keeping it secret, but they also don’t do a great job of investigating.)

It makes the comment section more interesting : )

Context made me think it was going to be a pelican trying to eat a baby. But no, that was a fun watch.

Yes. The power to do literally anything would allow one to do this.

I’ve been reading stories from the Hatsune Miku rhythm game app, that almost straddles the line between urban fantasy and unexplained sci-fi. The premise is that instances of the vocaloids live in personalized virtual worlds for different (small) groups of humans. The humans can teleport to these worlds by playing a special song on their phone, or the vocaloids can project themselves as holograms from the humans’ phones. It’s almost sci-fi because it mostly works within constraints of technology. For example, you get booted out of the virtual world if your phone runs out of battery, and if your phone gets shorted out, it can prevent the vocaloids from projecting themselves until the phone is repaired (though if the phone still works otherwise, they can voice chat.) Also the special song can be transferred to different machines and still works. But then what makes it more fantasy is that the song and worlds are created from the humans’ feelings (and if they lose the song, a new copy will appear for them,) and it works without internet connection (if one member of a group is stranded and another isn’t, they could have a vocaloid relay a message.) And then just recently I read a chapter where some characters were able to access their virtual world through their dreams, without needing the song file in the first place. For me, that’s what completely tipped the scale into urban fantasy.

Squirrel.

No albums, but…
E.G.G.M.A.N.
LEGO Eggman Rap
Uh… E.G.G.M.A.N. (Doc. Robeatnix Mix)

Guy needs more songs.

Yeah, and that’s sad, but it’s a narrow road.

If someone’s out trying to bring about a second Holocaust, you can call them a Nazi. It wouldn’t be right to call them “someone with an old German mindset.”

No True Scotsman is a tricky one here. In the original, it works because strictly speaking, a Scotsman is just anyone who lives in Scotland, so you can’t prescribe additional requirements to it. As for Christianity, I feel the term should be limited to those who actually follow the Bible, but in general use it’s just anyone who chooses to call themselves that. I’d love to have a separate term for those who follow the Bible so we can avoid this problem, but if it catches on, the grifters would start calling themselves that too.

In any case, the Bible is the rulebook for Christianity, and calling yourself a Christian implies that you believe it, so I think that it’s fair to say a true Christian is one who follows the Bible. But then, the Scottish law is the rulebook for Scotland. Though calling yourself a Scotsman doesn’t necessarily imply that you’re not a criminal, that’s just the default assumption for everyone (barring racism and other prejudices.)

There’s a difference between sharing your faith and making it illegal to not follow its rules. That’s what I was trying to emphasize.

I fit the definition of evangelical Christian, though I generally don’t use that label. I believe the God is the ultimate authority, and by extension, the Bible is the ultimate authority over Christians. That does not mean I believe in forcing people to follow its rules or punishing them if they don’t. A lot of the laws simply don’t work or make sense if you don’t have faith, and the Bible makes it clear that you need a change of heart to follow the laws, not vice versa. That’s why I’m not voting for or supporting movements to ban abortions (also the biblical basis of that is questionable) or force shops to close on Sundays.

I believe in the sharing of faith, but I’m not acting like an arch user or a vegan who has to work it into conversation every chance they get (yes, that’s an exaggeration.) My friends already know I’m a Christian, and most people in Western society already know the basic tenets of the religion, so sharing that repeatedly isn’t going to do much. And I can’t force someone to be saved or bring them to salvation, God has to call them. So all I can and should do is help to show it’s real by the way I live my life, demonstrating love for all mankind, and hope they get the idea. If that much is problematic, I think we’ve got issues.

The reason I take issue with demonizing evangelicals is that it comes off as “Christianity as a whole might be fine, just don’t be an evangelical because they’re the bad ones,” and then you look it up and it becomes “you can be a Christian, just don’t tell anyone and don’t believe the Bible.” I figured that isn’t what was meant exactly, which is why I’m asking for a different label to be used, because that’s how it comes off.

Which is a fool’s errand, as the whole reason for Jesus (or at least a big part of it) is that you can’t save people through laws. Nobody can live up to those standards, so everyone would be a criminal.

Anyone who’s actually an evangelical Christian should be. The Bible says to emulate Jesus, and that Jesus is a friend of sinners. Even if someone walks in naked and wasted with “I love Satan” tatooed on their chest and they punch you in the face and steal your wallet, love is not rude.

Even so, having full details on every single thing a political figure does isn’t going to make that much of a difference in how effectively you can persuade people. If someone isn’t persuaded by Trump’s 34 felonies, telling them that his lawyers are saying “one thing at a time please” isn’t going to give you an edge in the conversation.

Also, you need to be mindful of where you’re making your efforts. If you’re a lefty, posting lefty stuff on Lemmy isn’t going to do all that much. When was the last time you saw a conservative community on Lemmy? You’d be preaching to the choir.

I know this is probably going to get downvoted, but I’m getting tired of people using “evangelical Christian” as the term for the problematic flavor of Christians. If you look up what evangelical Christian means, it’s just that there’s an emphasis on the authority of the Bible, sharing of faith, and personal salvation. Maybe it’s the sharing of faith that seems problematic*, but by context, I think you’re more referring to political conservative Christians.

*If that is the case, I hope it’s just when it’s done in an aggressive/tactless/heavy-handed way. I’d like to think we haven’t reached the point as a society where someone sharing their faith respectfully is seen as problematic.

I’ll go along with this.

NOOOOOoooo…!

Well, if you have a bad comment that’s going to get heavily downvoted, it’s funny to see that not even you upvoted yourself. Like “yeah, even I think my opinion here stinks.”

Am I going insane or did you remove your self-upvote?