kWhazit Oddities

Pokémon GO types rant

kWhazit — Thu, 18 May 2017 01:40:24 GMT

I want to start by saying that I do enjoy the game overall. The data usage is basically negligible as long as you get game updates through wifi. It helps motivate me to do some of the exercising and exploring I ought to be doing anyway, and honestly enjoy doing anyway once I actually start moving instead of making excuses. There's just something about seeing these creatures from my childhood coming to life... more or less, anyway. And it's free to play!

That said, it definitely has its problems.$CUT$ There's no interaction between players except indirectly through king-of-the-hill-style fighting over gym locations. Status ailments don't exist. Monster spawns are often poorly distributed outside of urban areas. Eevees show up constantly instead of being rare enough that you can only get a single one in many of the games. A number of special monsters remain completely unavailable so far (though maybe that's better than if everyone were overusing them). The app chews through battery charge like no one's business. The interface's responsiveness always seems to stutter at the worst possible times. I've recently been having an annoying problem where all the nearby monsters sometimes vanish for a few seconds before coming back, sometimes several times in a row. Stability remains an issue months after the initial release, especially in the busier areas that would otherwise be the best places to play. The positioning sometimes gets so flaky that it thinks I'm driving too fast even when I'm on foot, or not moving at all. And let's not forget the cheaters.

None of those are my main gripe, though.

Pokémon makes extensive use of a fairly complicated elemental rock-paper-scissors system. Picking the right matchup gives a substantial advantage, while picking the wrong one does the opposite. This, along with the 150+ monsters and the gotta catch'em all slogan, is what the game has always been known for, and it makes up the heart of the battle system. Even the anime references this constantly, though Ash's Pikachu in particular sometimes defies it when the plot says so.

To explain the mechanics in a little more detail, let's pretend for simplicity's sake that all the monsters have the same stats and that all attacks have the same power, so that if both monsters have neutral matchups against each other, they both inflict 100 damage per attack. Striking a weakness doubles that, so if one does that while the other doesn't, that's a 200/100 ratio. Resistances halve damage, so if the attacker with an advantage also has a resistance to the other one's attacks, that's 200/50, for a net 4x difference in damage output. There's also a mechanic called the same-type attack bonus (STAB) that adds an extra 50% damage when the user's type matches the attack's type, so that would be a 150/100 ratio if one has it and the other doesn't in an otherwise-neutral matchup, or 300/50 (6x difference!) when the one with STAB also has an offensive and defensive advantage. Even when the opponent gets STAB too, that's still 300/75, for a 4x difference.

Just to pile it on, monsters can have two types, combining the strengths and weaknesses of each type. Now, if one type resists what the other type is weak against, those cancel out and it takes the same damage as in a neutral matchup, and if both types resist the same thing, the monster only takes a quarter of the usual damage. But if both types have the same weakness, that means quadruple damage. A Tangela (Grass type, resistant to Ground) using Grass moves against a Rhyhorn (Rock/Ground, both types weak against Grass) that for some reason insists on using Ground moves, with our all-base-damage-is-100 assumption, is looking at a 600/75 advantage (since they both get STAB). That's 8 times the damage of the opponent. That should mean an easy win, even if the Tangela is significantly weaker than the Rhyhorn.

From this, I think it's safe to make these statements about the game mechanics:

Type matchup is easily the single most important aspect of combat, overpowering even fairly sizable differences in stats.
STAB is nice, but if you have to pick one or the other, choosing attacks that strike the opponent's weaknesses matters significantly more. Therefore, you generally want a monster to have a variety of move types, even if they don't all match its type.

But that's in the core games. Pokémon GO works very differently, and not just because the battles are real-time instead of turn-based.

The battle system in Pokémon GO substantially dumbs down the type system. A weakness means only 25% extra damage (instead of 100%), while a resistance gives only 20% reduction (instead of 50%). That's better than nothing, of course, but the effects are small enough that it's not too hard to make up for a disadvantage with better stats. The ideal matchup for single-type monsters without STAB goes from 200/50 to 125/80, or a 1.56x net damage advantage instead of the 4x in the core games. STAB counts for a 25% bonus, so it's also nerfed, but not by nearly as much. STAB on one side gives a 125/100 ratio in an otherwise neutral matchup, or 156/80 when combined with weakness and resistance, still only a 1.95x damage advantage instead of the 6x we're used to. Even hitting dual-type monsters where it hurts isn't especially impressive. The same Tangela and Rhyhorn example as above ends up with a 195/100 ratio—no better than an optimal matchup against a single-type monster, thanks to the Rhyhorn's STAB effectively canceling out its disadvantage of a doubled weakness.

So, in Pokémon GO:

Raw stats can easily overpower type disadvantages. Type can give you a slight edge, but it just isn't that much of a big deal.
STAB helps just as much as striking a single weakness does. More, actually, since it applies no matter what you're facing. Therefore, moves that don't match a monster's type are more or less useless, and more often than not you want both moves to have the same type.

That turns the whole concept upside down. The core idea of effective Pokémon battling is supposed to be building up a varied team and shuffling them around to suit what you're facing. But in Pokémon GO? Just get a few good attackers, and a few blobs of health for holding gyms, and you can almost ignore the type system entirely. Any monster that doesn't make it into the higher stat tiers barely matters at all. The underemphasis on the type system even makes some entire types effectively obsolete, since monsters of other types with worse matchups can make up for it and then some with raw stats. Take the Grass type, for instance. It should be the best choice against both Water and Ground, thanks to having both offensive and defensive advantages against both, but in practice, a good Electric monster does better against Water, and a good Water type does better against Ground, despite lacking appropriate resistance, since even the strongest Grass types just don't have as much in the way of raw stats as fairly common higher-end Electric and Water monsters. They can't balance things out by inflicting any of the status ailments they often could in the core games, either, since Pokémon GO doesn't implement those at all.

On the one hand, I kind of understand dumbing down types a bit, since the game gives you less control over your monsters' moves and less flexibility to pick what they do in combat. It's not very informative when it comes to helping you figure out which types work best, either. On the other hand, though, I can't help but think they took it too far. Maybe something more like +50% / -33%, leaving STAB at +25% where it is, might work as a decent compromise, and make my poor Venusaurs, Victreebels, Vileplumes (and one Bellossom) feel useful again.

But that's not even the part that bothers me the most.

In the core series, some defender types are flat-out immune to certain attack types. In Gen 1 alone, Normal and Fighting moves pass right through Ghost monsters, Ghost attacks can't touch Normal types either, Ground attacks can't reach Flying monsters, and Electric attacks won't conduct through Ground types. Later generations add to that a Steel type that's impervious to Poison attacks, a Dark type that blocks out Psychic moves, and a Fairy type that... scares off Dragon moves, I guess? Pokémon GO takes those deliberate and meaningful aspects of the type matchup system, shrugs indifferently, and treats them all like simple resistances. Not that the balance was ever perfect, but that's easily enough to throw it off completely, especially since monsters with immunities often have lower overall stats to even things out a bit. Dugtrio, for example, is honestly kind of pathetic for an evolved form, but between ignoring Electric attacks and inflicting triple damage thanks to weakness and STAB, it can still wreck a Pikachu's day. With a heavily nerfed damage bonus and no immunity, though, the only thing it's good for in Pokémon GO is filling in a space in the Pokedex. Similarly, all those underpowered Murkrow I keep struggling to catch exist almost entirely to give Psychic types a hard time, but they're virtually useless in Pokémon GO except to build up your catch count for Dark.

Let's use an Espeon (Psychic) vs. Umbreon (Dark) battle as a specific example. In the core series, the Espeon's best moves won't work thanks to the Umbreon's immunity, so it had better hope it at least has a non-Psychic attack to work with. The Umbreon, on the other hand, will have no trouble beating up on the Espeon's weakness to Dark attacks. The best case for the Espeon, then, is 100% damage (unless it's lucky enough to have Dazzling Gleam from a TM, and even then, that's still only 200% since it's not getting STAB), against the Umbreon's 300%. Realistically, the Umbreon will win that fight without even trying.

In Pokémon GO, though, that's not how things work. Espeon can only get Psychic moves, while Umbreon can only get Dark moves, so weakness, resistance-that-should-be-immunity, and STAB all automatically come into play. But since Pokémon GO eviscerated the relevance of types, the Umbreon can only inflict 156% damage to the Espeon's full 100%. The Umbreon still has the upper hand, yes, but it's not such a sure thing, and nowhere near the curbstomp it was meant to be.

It gets worse, though. Since Pokémon can have two types, some will have one type with an immunity and one without it. Immune is immune, though, whether the other type has resistance, weakness, or neither. At least, that's how it goes when the game respects immunities. But Pokémon GO doesn't. So when an immunity and a weakness collide, they just cancel out. Let me repeat that. A monster that is supposed to take no damage whatsoever from an attack will take just as much damage as a monster that has no resistance whatsoever to it. I can't make any excuses for that. It's just bad.

This wasn't as obvious before the Gen 2 rollout. With just Gen 1 monsters, the only attack type affected this way was Ground, and the only defenders affected were Zubat and Golbat (Poison/Flying), Moltres (Fire/Flying), Zapdos (Electric/Flying), and Charizard (Fire/Flying). The bats are too weak to realistically bother with anyway, and the legendary birds aren't available even now, so unless you're a big fan of Charizard, you probably never even noticed.

But Gen 2 more than doubles the list. Crobat (another Poison/Flying), Skarmory (Steel/Flying), and Ho-Oh (another Fire/Flying unobtainable legendary) all have the same weak/immune combination against Ground attacks. Girafirag, one of the oddball creatures that doesn't evolve, is Normal/Psychic, leaving it with the same problem against Ghost attacks, even though the immunity is the entire point of pairing Normal with Psychic (its only other effect is canceling out the usual Psychic resistance to Fighting). Gligar has an improbable Ground/Flying type combination, which ought to leave it immune to both Ground and Electric, but instead it takes full damage from Electric moves and only gets a small reduction against Ground.

And then we have Wooper and Quagsire, an family sporting a Water/Ground type combination. They look obviously watery, so I kind of get the impression they're meant to bait you into trying to electrocute them, only to find your moves have no effect while their Ground attacks wreck your poor monster. If nothing else, it at least should make no sense to use anything but Grass attacks against them thanks to that juicy 4x weakness. But not in Pokémon GO! Electric won't work quite as well as Grass, sure, but it gets the job done just fine. It shouldn't.

That's a problem. Again, given the differences in gameplay from the core games, I can understand not wanting to negate damage entirely. But immunity can't be treated as no better than resistance, and it can't be allowed to disappear just because the monster's second type has a weakness that ought to be ignored in this situation.

Maybe the gym overhaul that's reportedly in the works will change things.

(cross-posted to http://kwhazit.blogspot.com)

Goats and Doors

kWhazit — Sun, 25 Dec 2016 14:32:47 GMT

Today's issue of Parade has a 30th anniversary Marilyn vos Savant article that among other things revisits the Monty Hall problem (also known as two goats, three doors) that caused an alarming amount of controversy, including furor from a lot of from people who really ought to have known better. "Of the letters from the general public, 92% are against my answer, and and of the letters from universities, 65% are against my answer," she wrote in a follow-up, and many of these letters were condescending if not outright insulting.$CUT$

For anyone unfamiliar with it, here's the basic premise of the problem:

You're on a game show where you are presented with three closed doors. One, chosen at random, has a car behind it, while the other two have goats. You pick a door, trying to find the car. After you have picked, the host opens one door, always selecting one of the two that you did not choose, and always selecting one that has a goat behind it (since the host knows where the car is). You then are given the option of changing your selection from your original one to the other remaining unopened door. What do the odds say you should do?

It should be obvious enough that your initial chance of picking the correct door is 1/3, since there are three doors, each equally likely to hide the car, and you can only pick one. Let's label the doors A, B, and C, with A arbitrarily being the door that you picked. This leaves these three, equally likely, cases:

A) You picked door A, the door that has the car.
B) You picked door B, one of the two doors with a goat.
C) You picked door C, the other one of the doors with a goat.

At this point, the host opens a door, revealing a goat. Opening the door didn't change anything. The goats and car didn't move around. So now there are only two doors left, one with the car and one with a goat. Either door could be correct, so it doesn't really matter whether you switch or not, right? There's a huge problem with that assumption, though.

There are still three cases.

A) Your initial guess is still right. The host can open either of B or C; it doesn't really matter. If you switch, you lose.
B) Your initial guess is still wrong. The host must open door C, so switching gives you door B and the win.
C) Your initial guess is still wrong. The host must open door B, so switching gives you door C and the win.

It's easy to assume that, with two doors to pick from, you have a 50-50 chance either way. And that would be true, if you picked a door only after the host opened one. But you didn't! That's the trick. Your initial selection has a 1 in three 3 chance of being correct, period. Nothing the host does after you pick can alter that. The host knows something you don't, though, namely where the car is. The host never opens the door you picked, so not opening that door tells you nothing about what might be behind it. However, opening a door does affect the odds for the remaining unopened door, since the host never opens the door with the car. In two out of three cases, the unpicked closed door remains closed precisely because it hides the car.

The confusion comes from incorrectly conflating cases B and C by thinking of the situation as "the car is either behind the door I picked or behind the other unopened door". The thing is, there's only one way it can be behind the door you picked, but two different ways it can be behind the other door. It doesn't matter that you can express it as "either one or the other"; the probabilities simply aren't equal.

Bathroom Hypotheticals

kWhazit — Sat, 05 Nov 2016 13:54:27 GMT

I don't generally like to comment on politics, but this is more a social issue than a political one, so I consider it fair game. Anyone who's only here for the translations might still want to skip this one, though.

"I don't have anything against the transgenders, it's about the perverts and predators who could abuse this," or so I often hear.$CUT$ If that's true, it seems odd that all these proposed "bathroom bills" go by biological sex or birth certificates or male and female deoxyribonucleic acid, and don't so much as bring up predatory behavior. Similarly, the policies many of these people are objecting to apply specifically to transgender people and not to anyone else, much less to people trying to commit crimes. But all right, let's look at a few hypothetical scenarios that focus on the perverts and the predators. As of this writing, North Carolina specifically bans people from using public facilities that do not correspond to the sex listed on a their birth certificates, while Target stores have a policy expressly allowing people to use facilities that match their gender identity, so I'll be using the North Carolina capitol building and a Target store as the settings for these scenarios.

- Scenario 1: A predatory cisgender heterosexual man puts on a dress and walks into a women's restroom in a Target store pretending to be a transgender woman.
- Scenario 2: A predatory cisgender heterosexual man puts on a dress and walks into a women's restroom in the North Carolina capitol pretending to be a cisgender woman.

   There's no evidence that either of these specific scenarios have happened. Several incidents similar to scenario 2 have occurred in places other than the North Carolina capitol, but even these are quite rare, with fewer than a dozen verifiable cases in the entire US in the past decade and a half. And for the sake of completeness, I also ought to mention the two verifiable cases similar to scenario 1.
   One occurred in a homeless shelter for women in Toronto, which, involving both extended occupancy and presumably someone with some kind of gatekeeper role who in hindsight perhaps should have been more careful, is a very different environment from a restroom or even a locker room. The perpetrator attacked several people before being caught, and has been sentenced to an indefinite jail term that could mean life in prison.
   A more recent case in an Idaho Falls, Idaho Target, in which someone took pictures of a woman in an adjacent changing room, also fails to show what detractors want it to. While the perpetrator does apparently identify as transgender, and reports are mixed as to whether this particular Target has gender-segregated changing rooms or the pool of unisex rooms that is nearly universal for Target stores, neither of those have more than marginal relevance to the case. It's essentially impossible to take pictures like that without being caught, and sure enough, the perpetrator was caught and arrested, and has confessed, and will be prosecuted, and it made no difference whether they were transgender or not. Isn't that what's supposed to happen? No one got away with anything, there's no evidence that Target's policy did anything to make anything easier, and existing law applied regardless of who violated it or where.
   I find it rather telling that, despite there being people actively hunting for anything damning, these are the only factual cases anyone has been able to find anywhere in decades of trans-friendly anything that involves anyone claiming to be transgender to access anything for any illicit purposes. And if the second case involved the typical unisex changing area, it doesn't even meet those broad criteria!

Regardless, what meaningful difference is there between the two scenarios above? If someone really wants in that bathroom, does either case really pose any more of an obstacle than the other does? Don't forget, too, that there are cisgender women who are tall or muscular or hairy, or have low voices or short hairstyles or masculine builds, or prefer to dress in a more masculine style. Is it fair to give them extra grief because of a might-happen? While there's nothing wrong with watching your back and staying alert for suspicious behavior from anyone, it never has been and never will be as simple as "let's harass everyone who doesn't seem normal enough!"

Speaking of which, what if...

- Scenario 3: A cisgender heterosexual man doesn't put on a dress and walks into a women's restroom in the North Carolina capitol pretending to be a transgender man.

Again, there's no credible evidence that this or anything like it has happened so far. However, North Carolina's law requires transgender men to use female facilities unless they've managed to get their birth certificates changed. Here, therefore, we have here a way for someone to abuse trans-exclusive policy that's even more simple and straightforward than the hypothetical way to abuse trans-inclusive policy. If the perverts and predators can abuse the rules either way, how does it make any sense to claim the rules are about the perverts and predators? North Carolina's law, as I see it, actually makes it easier for them than Target's policy, since it involves a Must rather than a May, and because it gives predators trying to abuse it less reason to even attempt to blend in.
Trying to fight sexual assault by banning trans people from bathrooms in the hopes of keeping predators out makes as little sense as trying to fight obesity by banning bagels from bathrooms in the hopes of keeping donuts out, and for much the same reasons. Bagels aren't donuts, and obesity has very little to do with either of them being in bathrooms in the first place.

And what about an equally plausible and even more basic scenario?

- Scenario 4: A predatory cisgender heterosexual man simply opens the door and walks into a women's restroom, not bothering with any subterfuge.

After all, what's stopping him? Whether he's in the North Carolina capitol, a Target store, or somewhere else entirely, nothing much. There have been a handful of documented cases demonstrating this, including one in the news not too long ago in which a man choked a girl in the bathroom of a Chicago deli. He never claimed to be transgender, pretended anything, or even made any attempt to blend in, just walked right in and waited for his victim. Even cases like this, however, are exceedingly rare. Bathrooms just aren't where people looking for victims typically go.
Regardless, laws and policies make no difference to those who choose to ignore them. A sign on a door, especially one that doesn't lock, is just a sign, not a magical warding talisman. Sometimes I wonder if the objection to trans-inclusive policies has more to do with an unwillingness to face this truth and its implications than with the policies themselves. The rhetoric about non-discrimination policies "opening the door for predators" just sounds silly when it ought to be self-evident that they're already fully capable of, quite literally, opening the door on their own.

Let's also look at several other relevant cases.

- Scenario 5: A cisgender heterosexual man walks into a women's restroom, enters and locks a stall, pees in the toilet, then gets up, washes his hands, and leaves.
- Scenario 6: A cisgender heterosexual woman walks into a men's restroom, enters and locks a stall, pees in the toilet, then gets up, washes her hands, and leaves.
- Scenario 7: A cisgender heterosexual man who wants to feel powerful walks into a men's restroom, corners a boy, and molests him.
- Scenario 8: A cisgender heterosexual woman who wants to feel powerful walks into a women's restroom, corners a girl, and molests her.
- Scenario 9: A transgender person with a male birth certificate walks into a men's restroom (which is what North Carolina law dictates), and is cornered and molested.

I feel like these are getting closer to the heart of the issue, especially since all of them have happened and continue to happen. Scenarios 5 and 6 aren't particularly unusual and don't harm anyone in any way that I can imagine, yet North Carolina has gone out of its way to make these actions illegal. Scenarios 7 through 9 clearly harm people, yet North Carolina's law that's supposed to protect people from perverts and predators not only does nothing to address scenario 7 or 8, if anything it encourages scenario 9, putting people in more danger. Conversely, Target's policy has little if any bearing on scenarios 5 through 8, but does at least help do something to counteract scenario 9.

Meanwhile, North Carolina has missed out on a number of investments and jobs and events and more, specifically because of objection to their law. That harms the entire state, not just whoever this law supposedly or actually targets. Without even getting into the question of how anyone is meant to enforce it, that's a classic case of cutting off your nose to spite your face. And the governor who willingly signed the bill, apparently without a second thought, and continues to defend it, has the nerve to call the whole thing a conspiracy to hurt his re-election bid. And this sort of nonsense is a large part of why I try to avoid politics.

Some of the fears may well involve the perverts and the predators, but they simply aren't relevant to the question of who should be allowed to use which toilets.

Are people still insisting that passive voice is to be avoided?

kWhazit — Mon, 04 Jul 2016 18:22:05 GMT

Part of the problem, if my school experience gives any indication, stems from confusion about what, exactly, passive voice is. Many of my teachers told us to avoid any form of the verb "be", and some even had us memorize a list of its various forms—I can still rattle off "am, is, are, was, were, be, being, been" without even thinking about it—as part of the effort to avoid it. At least one took it a step further and gave instructions to avoid words like "exist" and "become" as well! Even at best, though, looking for "be"s at most serves only as an aid to finding passive voice, not the definitive identification it was sometimes treated as. Not until taking college courses on the Japanese language (which has a verb ending specifically for passive form that gets regular use) did I correctly understand the concept of passive voice.

Aside from not properly explaining what passive voice is in the first place, I don't think any of my English teachers ever explained why we supposed to avoid it, beyond "because I said so", or, at best, some vague admonitions about it making your writing weaker. Overuse of anything can make writing feel repetitive and stale, certainly, but avoiding something entirely, and with no real explanation as to why? That sort of thing never sits well with me. If I'm expected to do, or not do, something, I at least want to understand why. Even when I don't necessarily agree with the reasons, it's helpful to know that there are reasons. And, as should go without saying at this point, I can't remember anyone ever mentioning any of the various reasons why you would want to use passive voice.

So, why don't we start with what is and is not passive voice? The verb "be" has three major uses in modern English (unless I'm overlooking one), and only one of them puts a phrase in passive voice.

As a primary verb to indicate state of being

This is probably the most common usage of "be". Let's start with some examples, emphasizing the (entire) verb in each case.

I am the writer of this blog entry.
The seaweed is always greener in somebody else's lake.
People are often stubborn.
It was a dark and stormy night.
The chickens were restless.
This could be the discovery of the century!
While everyone else raced around, the meditating stranger was simply being.
It had been a strange series of events.

This form of "be" either acts as a synonym of "exist" or, more often, links a subject to a description or identification, similar to a verbal equal sign. You could make the case that this isn't exactly active voice, since nothing is actually doing anything, but it's not passive voice, since nothing is happening to anything, either.

Sometimes, there are effective ways to rephrase a sentence to avoid using a form of "be", and it couldn't hurt to take a look at sentences like these and see whether it makes sense to rewrite them. For example, "the grass in the meadow was green" could become "green grass grew in the meadow". When it works, this can help writing sound more vibrant. In many cases, though, it's more trouble than it's worth and just makes the result sound unnatural. Unless you want unnatural, that's not a good thing. Try to avoid overuse, yes, but realize that descriptive sentences with no actions have their place.

As an auxiliary verb to form progressive tense

I am writing this blog entry.
It is raining.
The peasants are rioting in the streets.
I was eating dinner when the phone call came.
They were calling her name.
You should be finishing your homework.
(If there's any natural way to use a "being [verb]ing" phrase that makes sense, I can't think of it.)
The government bureaucrats had not been doing anything useful for years.

Note that the verb in each of these cases indicates an action, and that the subject of the sentence is taking (or neglecting to take) that action. That's the very definition of active voice. You should only avoid sentences like these when the progressive tense itself does not correctly describe the action, never because of some phantom rule about avoiding "be". The only way a sentence with a verb in "-ing" form after a form of "be" can even possibly be passive is when the "-ing" verb is "being", and even then it's not a sure thing, as the example sentence in the first section above demonstrates.

As an auxiliary verb to form passive tense

I am dismayed by the confusion about the passive voice.
Seafood is commonly eaten in coastal regions.
All trains are delayed due to the snowstorm.
She was enthralled by the possibilities of the new invention.
The adventurers were defeated in combat.
Sleep can only be avoided for so long.
Some people are being fangoriously devoured by a gelatinous monster.
The new tech had been hired straight out of high school.

As above, the verb in each of these cases indicates an action, but unlike above, the subject of the sentence is not taking the action. Instead, it happens to the subject. If you see something that looks like "[verb]ed by", you're almost certainly looking at the passive tense, but note that "by" does not need to appear. When it does, however, you can rephrase a passive voice sentence "X was verbed by Y" as "Y verbed X"—but English teachers aside, you may not always want to do that.

Passive voice exists for a reason. Sometimes you don't know who performed the action, just who it affected. Sometimes you don't care who did it. Even when you do know and (at least to some extent) care, that information might be incidental to the thrust of the sentence. Passive voice works perfectly when you want to emphasize the consequences of an action, or to focus on its recipient rather than its performer. If you're telling a story about Arthur, then saying "Arthur was mugged" instead of "someone mugged Arthur" is not only perfectly fine but makes more sense. It's Arthur's story, not the mugger's.

Incidentally, you can make a passive verb without using any form of "be" at all, though it may not be considered proper English. If robbers "got chased off", for example, that's passive, since someone else chased them off, and it happened to them.

In a typically English tendency to make things more confusing, some words can be either the past participle of a verb or an adjective. This makes it difficult in some cases to tell whether a given sentence is using passive voice or whether the "be" acts as a connective and the following word acts as an adjective instead. For example, if the water "was frozen", "frozen" could be the past participle of "freeze", making this a passive verb, or it could be an adjective for something cold and solid, which would make this a descriptive sentence not in passive voice. Personally, I say leave the distinction to the linguists, and just use whatever works without worrying overly much about what it is grammatically.

And one more...

"Be" once had another usage, but this one has mostly died out in modern English. The appropriate form of "be" before the appropriate form of another verb indicated an action that occurred in the past and resulted in a state that continues to the present. Possibly the most familiar usage of this form comes in religious hymns. "Christ is born", "He is risen", and so on all indicate that something happened with a result that remains in effect. Similarly, someone who "is fled" has run away and not returned, more explicitly than someone who simply "has fled". Once again, this is not in any way passive voice.

To Summarize...

"Be" is not your enemy. It doesn't always mean passive voice, and even when it does, that isn't automatically a bad thing. Don't overuse either the passive or "be", but don't be afraid of them either. They have their uses, and understanding them will help, not hinder, your writing.

Toilets Still a Battleground Somehow

kWhazit — Sat, 14 May 2016 13:19:19 GMT

It all started when a friend on Facebook shared an image macro with some unsettling implications. Well, no, it all started long before that, but the image is what eventually led directly to this blog post. "I don't care what your son 'identifies as'," it said, "he doesn't belong in the bathroom with my daughter."$CUT$ On first glance, to the average person, it may seem innocuous enough. Wanting to keep your daughter safe? That much is understandable... even admirable. However... the post rubbed me the wrong way as soon as I saw it, though it took longer to articulate exactly why.

What's the Big Deal?

Let's consider what kinds of messages that statement sends.

It encourages people to fear other people who have done nothing to earn that fear.
It reduces complex individuals to a category and judges them by that category, with little or no consideration as to the accuracy of either the reduction or the judgment.
It mocks, without justification, the well-established concept that gender is more complicated than biology...
...and strongly implies that anyone who tries to defend said concept does so only for nefarious purposes, or is, at best, delusional.
It portrays sons as villains and daughters as helpless victims, which does neither any favors.
It may even insinuate that a lack of opportunity is the only thing stopping anyone who happens to have a penis from sexually assaulting everyone they meet who doesn't have one.
Conversely, it certainly seems to assume that "my daughter" need not fear any sexual abuse from anyone without a penis...
...and also that "your son" has nothing to fear from sexual predators at all. Have we already forgotten Jerry Sandusky, not to mention the scandals in the Catholic Church?
It suggests that public bathrooms would be completely safe if only "your son" would keep out and leave "my daughter" alone...
...and that the same bathrooms suddenly become completely unsafe otherwise.
While it doesn't directly advocate taking violent action, it could easily be interpreted that way. If nothing else, some of the less savory commenters clearly take it as support of their inclination to respond to the hypothetical "your son" with bodily harm.

I'm not the only one to take issue with it. While the original post got more than its fair share of "right on"s and people swearing to assault this hypothetical "your son" if they should ever happen to meet, it also got quite a few pointed objections. One commenter wonders, "I want to know who all you weirdos are who go into the bathrooms to do anything but take a pee? Seriously... You're really obsessed about this to the point it makes me wonder if you are the ones with the issues. I go to the bathroom to pee and wash my hands. I'm not looking at you. I'm not looking at your vagina. I'm not looking at your penis. I'm not looking at your kid of either gender that you bring in with you even when you leave the stall door open." Another questions whether there has "been some huge uptick in people waving their genitals around in public bathrooms? I mean when was the last time you knew what the person crapping in the stall next to you's private parts looked like?" The first likewise notes that, "You've probably been in the bathroom with countless transgendered people and you didn't even know because they were just in the bathroom to take a leak just like you."

But what about predators? As a third commenter points out, "sexual predation is already illegal. It doesn't need this law"—meaning any of several proposed laws and one enacted law that restrict bathroom access specifically by biological sex—"to stop it. No sexual predator will be stopped by this law. Do you really think one would be saying to himself, 'Gee, I really wanted to molest that child, but she went in the Ladies Room and I'm not allowed in there, so I think I'll go home and make some tea'?" Similarly, the first finds the idea of someone trying to abuse bathroom access laughable. "And you really think some pervert is going to dress up in a dress and pretend to be a transgendered female to twiddle your daughter while she's peeing? What is wrong with you people? You have some crazy ass hang ups."

I can't recall where I saw it, but a similar comment elsewhere went into a more detailed scenario that went something like this: Pretend, distasteful as this may be, that you're a man who wants to rape someone, and you get the idea of pretending to be transgender so you can launch your attack in a public bathroom. Now you have to go through the trouble, time, expense, and quite possibly embarrassment of securing feminine clothing that fits, not to mention figuring out how to wear it properly. You'd probably also want a wig and some makeup, which would cause similar problems to the clothing but likely more so, and maybe high heels, which you would then need to learn to walk in without tripping over your own feet. You'd want to do all of this in secret, unless you're exceptionally committed to the ruse. Once you've done all that and feel ready to put your plans into action, you then have to go out in public dressed up that way—past your neighbors, perhaps friends and family, and anyone else who may be watching. If you're not particularly convincing—and since you're just doing this as an excuse to get into the ladies' room, you're almost certainly not—you're going to draw attention everywhere you go, and quite likely face harassment and perhaps even assault. Assuming you make it that far, you then have to find your mark and wait for her to go pee, while trying not to look like you're watching her, and also continuing to have people gawking at how you look. Finally, the time comes to strike! She goes in, you follow presumably after a long enough pause to not seem to be following her, you make your move, and the next thing you know... screaming, mace, security, police, and then you wind up in prison because, wouldn't you know it, assault is still illegal, and no court in its right mind is going buy "I'm allowed to be in there" as an excuse, even if you somehow manage to convince them that you really are transgender. If anything, given how law enforcement has often treated transgender people, you may very well be worse off if they do believe you. Even ignoring that more than four out of five sexual assaults come from people the victims already know, that seems like an awful lot of trouble to go to, with far too much risk. Frankly, public bathrooms are a terrible place to attempt an assault.

And what's the practical difference between a man pretending to be transgender to get into the women's room and a man pretending to be just plain female to get into the women's room? Re-read the previous paragraph, but replace "transgender" with "female". The scenario goes the same either way, so what difference do any rules that either help or hinder transgender people make to our hypothetical would-be rapist? Even the most stringent of proposed laws would still allow chromosomal XX females into the women's room. I can't imagine that someone would be willing to pretend to be transgender just to walk through a door, yet would not be willing to simply claim to have been born female.

People have also raised concerns about cameras being planted, but again, the amount of trouble and risk someone would have to go through to claim being transgender as an excuse, even ignoring that being trans doesn't make filming or photographing people in bathrooms and so forth without their consent any less illegal, makes the idea seem frankly absurd. Why bother, when it would be so much easier to impersonate a janitor, or a plumber, or just a generic maintenance worker? Far from drawing unwanted attention, many people regard such menial workers as beneath their notice, and on top of that, it would provide a convenient justification for everything from performing otherwise suspicious activities to emptying out the room. But why take even that risk? Surely someone so inclined would be able to find a female accomplice for the right price, removing any need to enter the room at all. And all that's assuming that the voyeur isn't a woman in the first place, as well as ignoring anyone trying to spy on the men's room. Exhibitionists have similarly been raised as a concern, but since they can do their thing anywhere, and bathrooms have stalls for a reason, it's hard to see the relevance.

(On a side note, if you happen to be one of the commenters referenced above and would like me to include your name or other identifier, just let me know. I'd just rather not name names without permission, especially when it involves what has turned into a divisive issue.)

The line in the image may mention "my daughter" as a justification for its message, but it isn't really about her. It's not even really about "your son". It's about a nebulously defined, poorly understood, often ignored amalgamation of various vaguely related categories of people. "Transgender", "non-conforming", "genderqueer", "trans*", "intersex", "cross-dressing", "androgynous", "transsexual", "genderfluid", "transvestite", "shemale", "fairy", "hermaphrodite", "tranny", "sissy", "butch", "tomboy", "nancy-girl", "pervert", "freak", "deviant", "queer", "godless heathen", and the ever-popular yet not particularly meaningful "fag"... whatever words you use, however accurate or inaccurate they may be, and however much or little you mean them as insults, these are the people who not only believe that there's more to a person than what's between their legs, but live it. These are the people that this is really about. And these are the people that it paints as worthy of your fear and deserving of your scorn.

But how much sense does it make to think that way? It's not as though there aren't already cities, school districts, and even entire states that have passed laws to prohibit discrimination by gender identity in public accommodations, thus officially permitting trans people to use whichever bathroom they feel is appropriate. These include state laws to this effect in Maryland since 2014; Delaware since 2013; Nevada, Connecticut, and Massachusetts since 2011; Colorado since 2008; Iowa, Oregon, and Vermont since 2007; New Jersey, Hawaii, and Washington since 2006; Illinois and Maine since 2005; and New Mexico and California since 2003. Rhode Island's state law on the issue dates all the way back to 2001, and while it may not be a very large state, that still gives us a period of fifteen years, with a population of more than a million people, to consider. If that's still not enough of a sample size, Minnesota, with a population of over five million, has also had a state law to this effect, since 1993. Even disregarding local ordinances (which cover a number of large cities, including New York, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, and Austin), that's quite a few states and quite a few years. You'd think if this were a disaster waiting to happen, there would be some sign of it by now. Yet there hasn't been. Law enforcement officials, government employees, and advocates for victims of sexual assault alike have declared it a non-issue. The predicted increase in sexual assault and rape hasn't happened, the predicted abuse of these laws hasn't occurred, and these laws have provided zero defense to anyone committing an actual crime. It could happen. And the ceiling could collapse on top of you while you're sitting on the toilet. But it simply isn't a realistic concern. Even victim advocacy groups call it an "unsubstantiated fear" and dismiss the supposed threat as "beyond specious". And, of course, even should an incident occur, nothing in any existing or proposed law would excuse perpetrators from punishment, any more than being allowed into a bank excuses robbing it.

Meanwhile, consider the choice not having a non-discrimination policy (or worse, having an explicitly exclusionary law) leaves transgender people who find themselves with a full bladder, or bowels, in a public area. They could use the "wrong" bathroom and hope no one notices they're not "supposed" to be there, or at least that it doesn't upset anyone and that they don't end up being harassed, assaulted, arrested, or worse. They could use the "right" bathroom and hope not to encounter anyone, or at least that it doesn't upset anyone and that they don't end up being harassed, assaulted, beaten, or worse. They could use the family restroom—assuming there is one at all, and that it isn't already in use—and hope no one uses that as an excuse to single them out for harassment, assault, stalking, or worse. Failing that, they could hold it in, endure the discomfort or agony, and hope that nothing starts leaking and that it doesn't lead to any problematic medical conditions like urinary tract infections (if that doesn't sound so bad, just try going through a whole work or school day without any bathroom visits, then imagine doing that on a regular basis). Even without getting into the inevitable psychological effects, are any of these acceptable choices? And what happens when people single out someone who has nothing to do with any of this for "looking" transgender—whatever they decide that means to them?

Excerpts from a Conversation

In trying to give the image in question the sort of rebuttal it deserves, I wound up in a conversation with the person who had shared it. Whether it had any meaningful impact remains to be seen, but the most anyone can do is try.

At this point, I need to introduce two very different laws currently in place that came up during the discussion. One of them, North Carolina's HB2, just recently went into effect, at the beginning of April 2016, and has already drawn a significant amount of, mostly negative, attention. In short, it bans people from using public bathrooms that do not correspond to their biological sex as specified on their birth certificates (on a side note, that also means that a biological female trying to avoid lines in an overcrowded women's room can be arrested for trying to use the men's room), regardless of their gender identity or expression (not, of course, that it acknowledges these as existing). It specifically overrides all local ordinances to the contrary, and perhaps more insidiously, also nullifies all local ordinances against discrimination of any other kind based on sexual orientation or gender identity. The other, California's AB 1266, passed in August 2013, expressly (many districts had already been following a similar policy even prior to the bill's passage) permits students to use facilities that correspond to their gender identity, regardless of their biological sex or what appears on their school records (though note that California already had a general non-discrimination law on the books since 2003).

So, here's part of that conversation, slightly edited to work properly without the original context. The arguments I was specifically addressing here were (1) if the law says that they can legally be in that bathroom, it makes it easier for the perverts to perpetrate their crime (never mind that I've never heard of a bill about giving "the perverts" access to anything), and (2) it's enough for the transgender folks to have a separate bathroom.

Does it actually make it easier for the perverts? There have been some infrequent cases of men masquerading as women (typically not, and possibly never, as transgender) to creep on people in women's bathrooms, but these have generally happened in times and places that didn't make any provisions for transgender people anyway. The perpetrators were undoubtedly prosecuted for their actions, which is as it should be, but the law didn't do a thing to keep them out. HB2 wouldn't have stopped them, AB 1266 wouldn't have excused them, and it's unlikely that either would have made any difference to their actions. If you do set up a law like HB2, though, that means requiring trans men to use the women's room just as much as it means requiring trans women to use the men's room—unless, of course, they've been able to get their birth certificate changed, which generally isn't an easy process, where it's allowed at all. Regardless, now you have not just people with breasts and other feminine features that the law expects to use the men's room, but also people with full beards and other masculine features that the law expects to use the women's room. Isn't that the scenario that's more likely to make it easier for the perverts? They wouldn't even have to dress up to claim they belong wherever they want! And don't forget that women can be predators, too, or that predatory men don't necessarily target women exclusively (isn't that what a lot of the fuss over "the gays" has been about?). And if anything happens to the trans people who are so out of place in their law-approved bathroom, well, they just brought it on themselves, as far as all too many people, police included, are concerned. As for separate family and unisex bathrooms, while they can help, they aren't available everywhere, and I can't say that I agree relegating all the "others" there is the right move anyway (especially since just using one automatically marks you as "different"), unless mixed bathrooms become the default for everyone, with gendered bathrooms available merely as supplements for those people who don't feel comfortable otherwise. Maybe it would be easier to just lock up public bathrooms entirely and be done with it. Or, we could hold people accountable for the actions they do take, not those they have the opportunity to take, otherwise everyone would need to be arrested.

You can read more about some of these incidents on Snopes. "The man did not identify himself as transgender; the man did not engage in activity protected under non-discrimination ordinances; and the man's alleged actions were not deemed acceptable by people who support non-discrimination ordinances," reads one entry, adding, "The incident had nothing to do with bathroom ordinances, it involved unquestionably illegal actions, and the individual identified was arrested and charged ... a charge that would also be applicable in any jurisdiction that permitted transgender individuals to use bathrooms aligned with their gender." Similarly, another entry notes, "The case wasn't in any way related to transgender bathroom controversies; no provision of any bill or policy allowed men to enter women's restrooms; photographing anyone in bathrooms or restrooms without their knowledge or consent is illegal," and concludes, "Claims that such behavior was a result of transgender individuals using bathrooms were easily disproved." Even if they were relevant, though—which they plainly aren't, considering that neither man tried claiming to be transgender or attempted to use any non-discrimination rules as a defense, and that no laws in any way excused their actions—a few isolated incidents would hardly amount to the epidemic that detractors keep insisting is sure to come.

On that note, the Charlotte Observer did some digging and found only three verifiable instances of crimes committed by biological males in women's restrooms or locker rooms in the United States over the past 17 years. None involved sexual assault or rape, none had any evidence of involving transgender people, none occurred in jurisdictions where transgender people had legal permission to enter in the first place, and none of the perpetrators would have been excused of what they did even if they had been transgender and had been allowed entry. To help put that in perspective, more people have been arrested in just the past two years for climbing the Brooklyn Bridge suspension cables to take selfies. Similarly, we think of being struck dead by lightning as extremely rare—largely because it is—yet dozens of people in the United States die that way each year, making it hundreds of times more common an occurrence.

Another more recent case, involving a Seattle man in a women's locker room, has similarly generated a lot of chatter online, much of it misleading and inflammatory. The limited information available indicates that he slipped into the room during a busy time, took off his shirt, claimed, "The law has changed and I have a right to be here," and left with little fuss when asked to. The commotion about it tends to ignore that the man never claimed (either explicitly by saying so or implicitly by appearance or behavior) to be transgender or identify as female, that there's no evidence he actually did anything beyond standing there with his shirt off, and that he left before there was any reason for the authorities to get involved. His statement also rarely gets any meaningful analysis. Superficially, it relates to the current debate, but Washington state law has banned discrimination based on gender identity since 2006. The Washington State Human Rights Commission did clarify late in 2015 that existing law allows transgender people to use bathrooms and locker facilities consistent with their gender identity, but the only recent change to any related law in Seattle involves an ordinance that requires all single-occupancy facilities to be non-gendered. There's nothing new that relates to multiple-occupancy facilities, and certainly nothing that would give someone who is in every discernible way male the right to stroll into a women's locker room. So, either he's clueless, or this was some kind of stunt, most likely political in nature. The timing of the event points toward a political stunt, given that it happened only days before the State Senate voted on a bill that, had it gone into law, would have revoked protections for transgender people. It's always possible that's just a coincidence, but given how rarely incidents like this happen at all, I'm inclined to view the whole thing skeptically, especially since he made a point of trying to connect his presence to the topic.

As for expecting all the trans people to use separate bathrooms, let's not forget that "trans" isn't a uniform, or even a clearly-defined, category. Let's also not forget how recently public facilities read "Ladies", "Gentlemen", and "Colored". Tellingly, no one seemed to care about those little girls having to share bathrooms with men, as long as the lot of them all kept their distance. No, the hysterical rhetoric then was about the supposed dire consequences of letting the "colored" people share the same bathrooms as white people. Most of us have gotten over it. Unfortunately, some of that attitude still lingers, though, and if you happen to be transgender and a racial minority, those biases just feed off each other and make it that much more hazardous to be you. Beyond that, what information I've been able to find on bathroom history also suggests that much of the reason we have sex-segregated bathrooms at all dates back to a combination of centuries-old notions that women are necessarily physically and mentally frail, and efforts to discourage women from leaving the home by designating existing bathrooms as male only. It seems this was around the same time women had to use separate entrances to such places as stores and workplaces, lest they be overwhelmed by too much exposure to masculinity. If that has any connection to the safety of the ladyfolk, it's in an insultingly condescending manner.

In any case, how would trying to enforce that kind of law work? Either everyone minds their own business and no one knows the difference (as is already the case pretty much anywhere that doesn't have any explicit rules one way or the other, and undoubtedly also in many places that do), or anyone who doesn't quite look "normal" is practically guaranteed to face harassment or worse no matter how much the law or common sense or both say they belong there, or someone has to be stationed by the bathrooms to check IDs (which aren't directly relevant under HB2) or birth certificates (which people don't normally carry around with them), or maybe just grope everyone who walks by (which again doesn't match the way that HB2 defines biological sex, not to mention that I can't imagine a worse way to protect people from sexual assault than subjecting them to it).

Unsurprisingly, North Carolina seems to have no idea how to enforce it, either. The law, which was rushed through the legislature and signed into law in a single day over the objections of the third of the Senate that walked out in protest, didn't bother to include any specifics on that note. Additionally, it puts schools in particular in an awkward position, since they're also expected to follow federal Title IX rules, especially since the Departments of Education and Justice have, in response to inquiries from schools and parents seeking guidance, reiterated their stance that schools receiving federal funds may not discriminate against transgender students.

Meanwhile, the governor who signed the bill is trying to lay the blame for HB2 on the Charlotte city council for forcing the issue (by renewing and being more specific about existing protections), and manages to simultaneously acknowledge that it's "a very complex issue" while also characterizing the whole mess as a conspiracy designed to hurt his re-election bid. He apparently fails to see the irony inherent in complaining about the backlash not allowing for any dialogue when the law was introduced, passed, and signed at a pace that seems to have been specifically intended to prevent discussion. It does sound like he's done some good things for the state's economy—before HB2 provoked boycotts, anyway—but I get the impression he's completely out of his depth here. Meanwhile, even as he complains about how much the situation is hurting him, the call volume to Trans Lifeline, a crisis hotline for transgender people, has spiked to unprecedented levels since the law's passage. Transgender and gender non-conforming people already have unusually high rates, not only of suicide attempts—not to mention being raped and murdered—but also of being bullied at school, facing discrimination at work, becoming homeless, being refused treatment by healthcare providers, suffering rejection by family members, and experiencing physical and sexual violence at school and at work and even from the law enforcement officers who ought to be arresting predators instead of imitating them. A law that effectively codifies the message "we don't want you around" doesn't exactly help.

This governor also seems to have a very curious definition of "government overreach". His objection to it was one of his stated reasons for opposing the Charlotte ordinance. Evidently, though, he doesn't feel that it's overreach to sign a statewide law on the issue instead of letting cities decide how to run themselves. Yet now that the federal Department of Justice has announced plans to cut federal funding to the state, he's calling that overreach and has filed a lawsuit. So to summarize, apparently a city government making a rule that only affects itself is overreach, but the state government making a law to cancel the rule and affect the rest of the state in the process is not overreach, but the federal government giving the state less money that has had strings attached all along is overreach. While I'm leery of what amounts to the federal government using taxpayer money to bribe states into doing what it can't or won't require them to do, it's hard to imagine how the DoJ's response to North Carolina's law is any more overreaching than North Carolina's response to Charlotte's ordinance. The governor's idea of "government overreach" apparently involves either "something a body of government that isn't mine does" or "something a government does that I don't like." Neither one of those inspires much confidence.

Anyway, back to that conversation.

Coming at it from a different angle, how's this? If the law says people can legally have public gatherings, that makes it easier for riots to break out. And if the law says people can legally expect some degree of privacy in bathrooms, that makes it easier for shoplifters to hide stolen merchandise, not to mention all the things "those creepy trannies" are supposedly doing in there, never mind that more politicians have been arrested for improper behavior in bathrooms even in the past few years than people so much as claiming to be transgender have ever been. And if the law says people can legally own guns, that makes it easier for maniacs to go on shooting sprees. And if the law says bars can legally operate and serve alcohol, that makes it easier for the unscrupulous to spike drinks, or to just take advantage of those who have had too much. And just think of how many traffic accidents we could prevent simply by not letting people drive cars! But we wouldn't ban public gatherings, few of us would tolerate cameras in every bathroom stall, we're not likely to outlaw guns, we haven't closed down the bars, and cars aren't going away any time soon despite the flaws inherent in the system.

Meanwhile, no matter what the law says, if the prevailing attitude is that transgender people are to be feared, that makes it easier for a nominally Christian supposed legal advocacy group, after finding to its frustration that AB 1266 meets with "nothing but positive results", thus thwarting its efforts to find a plaintiff for a lawsuit and forcing it to expand into other states its desperate search for someone—anyone—victimized by trans-friendly bathroom policy to use as a sign of dire things to come, to then, still unable to find any actual complaints, simply pick a transgender "predator" as the focus of a sensational "nightmare scenario" involving hounding girls in the bathrooms and regularly making "sexually harassing comments" with the full support of a school that responds to anyone trying to make a complaint with "penalties ranging from charges of hate crimes to dismissal from school sports"... and despite this completely fabricated story being quickly debunked (the only bits of truth to it were that a transgender student did exist and was sharing facilities with everyone else, and that some parents had voiced concerns), and both the administration and the supposedly victimized students at the Colorado school in question standing up for the alleged "predator", it still ends up receiving enough media attention, and drawing enough violent threats, to put the falsely accused teenager on suicide watch. I wish this were only hypothetical.

That legal advocacy group, incidentally, is the ironically-named Pacific Justice Institute, which would later see its attempt at having AB 1266 removed by petition fall flat, despite extensive use of more inflammatory lies in its campaign to get signatures. One signature gatherer claiming to work for the Oakland school district specifically alleged that "we've had a couple of rapes, we've had molestations" (when asked, the district responded, "We have not received reports of sexual assault or sexual harassment perpetrated by transgender students") and demonstrated an utter lack of comprehension by mentioning "teenage boys ... going into girls' bathrooms saying they're gay" (emphasis added). The PJI has since been designated as a hate group for its indefensible and utterly unjust tactics. Not that it seems to care about that part, any more than it seems to care about the harm it's done to innocent people. The latest news I've been able to find on the subject involved the group and its allies trying to cry foul play after the state was unable to verify enough of the signatures on their petition to qualify it for a ballot referendum. Sadly, the group is acting far more concerned with being "right" than with being in the right.

It's curious how often people with similar attitudes come from religious backgrounds that tell of a spirit distinct from, and if anything more important and central to the self than, the body. Yet these same people insist on judging people only in terms of their body parts, and deny the possibility or reject the significance of a psychological gender not strictly defined by physiological sex. It boggles the mind.

Bigotry By Any Other Name Still Smells as Foul

That conversation and its background information were originally going to be the whole post, but no sooner, it seemed, had I started editing it than a more verbose narrow-minded editorial appeared in the local newspaper (by Chris Freind, published 2016-04-17). This is only an issue at all, he claims, "because a small but vocal minority refuses to see"—as if there were nothing to discuss and no real concerns, just a not-truly-significant number of stubborn fools—"that the law is rooted in common sense and safety, not bigotry." Isn't it pretty much the essence of bigotry to dismiss offhand the viewpoints of people you disagree with, to make blanket judgments without justification on people you don't understand, and to assume, as he goes on to do, that they must be dangerous? As for common sense and safety, I've already noted how well documented the case against that is. He then asserts that "many extremists are deliberately employing hateful rhetoric in the hopes of igniting a flashpoint," which I can actually agree with him on, just not in the way he means it. Consider how this very editorialist characterizes the people he disagrees with as blind extremists who just want to cause trouble, yet fails to provide a single example of this supposed hateful rhetoric (people being people, it's probably out there, but doesn't seem at all prevalent from what I can find). Consider how the PJI treated an innocent teenager who never did anything to them and had only a tangential connection to their crusade. Consider how many anti-trans arguments boil down to equating "transgender person" with "man in a dress" (perhaps tellingly, they always seem to overlook trans men, not that a "woman in pants" would generate much outrage anyway) and "pedophile" or "predator", or at best "delusional head case", and assuming without evidence (or, more accurately, against evidence) that it would cause nothing but trouble to let transgender people use appropriate bathrooms—even though many of the people this would apply to have already been doing so for quite some time. Oddly enough, the editorialist inadvertently makes this very point: "It's always worked before, so why the big controversy now?" Why indeed. If it's always worked before, why was there such urgency to pass HB2? Why have so many other bills been introduced across the country that would specifically tie bathroom access to genitalia, birth certificates, or even DNA? Most likely because society as a whole is only beginning to recognize the existence of "transgender" at all—it's hard to feel apprehensive about, or villainize, what's beneath your notice.

And the emotionally-charged hypotheticals! "What parents in their right minds would feel comfortable sending their young daughter into the ladies' bathroom where a man, acting on 'feelings' alone"—note the offhand dismissal of being transgender as nothing more than insubstantial whimsy—"might be using the same facility?" The same parents that would send their young daughter into any public facility full of strangers, I'd assume. Yet even the manliest of men is no danger to her if all he's doing is using the facilities, and if they're that worried about her safety, why aren't they accompanying her? "A father out with his 5-year old daughter can take her into the men's room"—how is taking a little girl into a bathroom full of men not a concern if keeping men away from little girls is so critical?—"but when she is 8 or 9, that doesn't cut it. So what then?" We're apparently expected to assume that she has nothing to fear from female strangers as long as no one in the ladies' room is trans, and that the mother out with a son of 8 or 9 should have no qualms about sending him into a room full of unfamiliar men. Either way, that sounds more like an argument for more family or unisex bathrooms than like anything that supports the point the writer is trying to make. "And what about locker rooms?" What about them? I thought bathrooms were the topic at hand. There is some connection, though, so I'll humor the digression. "While high school boys would love nothing more than legally accessing the girls' locker room"—the overly libidinous heterosexual ones without a care for other people's feelings, perhaps; everyone with a different sexual preference or any shred of self-control always seems to be conveniently absent in these hypotheticals, along with any mention of how rare any relevant trouble has been—"it would create an environment of fear and anxiety in a place that should be private and secure." Has the editorialist ever been to high school? I've never known a school locker room to be particularly private or secure, and splitting up boys and girls just seems to make bad behavior worse. Fewer witnesses, less accountability, more pressure to fit in or face the consequences... if anything, an environment of fear and anxiety is already more the norm than not. In any case, school districts have already been dealing this question for years. Pleading "trans" doesn't excuse anyone of anything, and there are guidelines in place to prevent abuse. In particular, no one is going to believe a boy who only tries to claim that he identifies as female when it's time for gym class. "And while an assault or rape there would still be illegal"—yes, it most certainly would, reluctant as some seem to concede even that point—"the liability that now exists—" You know what, never mind. Trying to frame this in terms of "safety and security, especially for women", then detouring to liability, of all things, just doesn't work. If safety and security are what you care about, whether you can sue the school should barely be an afterthought, if that, and certainly not part of the case you're trying to make.

"No one is saying you can't be transgender." Except that mocking the very idea of it does just that. You can't be something that doesn't really exist, after all! "No one is saying you can't be transgender in public." As long as you never need to pee, I suppose, and don't mind living with a law that treats you like a dangerous threat just for being who you are. "No bigotry." Unless judging the entirety of a varied demographic on the basis of assumptions and unsubstantiated fears counts. "No hatred." Perhaps not as such, but it's no better to dismiss legitimate concerns offhand and counter with scare tactics. "No nonsense." Really? A more appropriate list of "no"s might have been "no understanding, no respect, no sympathy".

Paying Too Much Mind to Other People's Business

Another editorialist with a similar message followed not long after, and almost had me laughing, since she practically proves the point she's arguing against with her opening statements (Christine Flowers, published 2016-04-23). "The other day, I was sitting in a public bathroom stall, and it occurred to me that since this wasn't North Carolina I might be within tinkling distance of someone doing their business standing up"—never mind that trans women generally prefer to sit regardless, even without the risk of hostile reactions from people—because "there are no explicit prohibitions against individuals with penises carrying them into the ladies facilities." To begin with, being in North Carolina wouldn't really change that. I have no doubt that a significant number of people will continue to use bathrooms based on where they feel less likely to face a confrontation, regardless of what's on their birth certificates. Whether you're in North Carolina, California, or Target, there's rarely anything more than a door, social pressure, and the nebulous threat of retaliation if caught to keep anyone out of any given bathroom. It's not like public bathrooms normally have security guards or body scanners or DNA analyzers or magical barriers of some sort at the entrance. Still, that's little more than a side note.

She's quite right that you don't know whether someone in another stall has a penis. But you shouldn't be able to tell, unless you're going out of your way to be voyeuristic. That's the whole point of privacy, and an important part of safety. By the same token, you don't know whether they're short or tall, or rich or poor, or conservative or liberal or statist or libertarian, or Protestant or Catholic or Mormon or Jewish or Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist or atheist or none of the above, or gay or straight or bisexual or asexual or pansexual or something else, or what their skin color is, or what they're wearing, or where they live, or where their family came from, or what foods they prefer or have allergies to, or what their hobbies are, or what medications they're taking, or, unless they decide to tell you, anything else except that they're disposing of bodily wastes in a sanitary manner. And as long as they're minding their own business, you have no justifiable reason to care. On the other hand, as soon as someone starts causing problems... it still doesn't matter who they are. Improper behavior is improper behavior, no matter who it's coming from, and a miscreant without a penis is just as much a miscreant as one with a penis. Banning transgender people from a bathroom doesn't do anything to stop already illegal activities, and neither does sanctioning bathroom use by transgender people make illegal activities any less illegal.

The editorialist predictably continues with many of the usual inflammatory yet hollow attacks. Mocking the concept of gender identity as "against all objective evidence" regardless of all the evidence that would beg to differ, complaining about being "slapped in the face" with all this gender stuff as if it were a personal insult designed specifically to upset her instead of a legitimate issue with serious implications that she's nonetheless perfectly free to ignore if she wants, claiming that the idea of extending some basic human dignity to people who don't fit society's idea of normal really means "there is no longer any normal" and assuming that this would necessarily be a bad thing, calling non-discrimination in public facilities "a recipe for disaster" even though reality has thoroughly debunked that... and, of course, the predictable nonsense claim that "a man who is in all respects a man can assume the façade of being 'transgender' to then abuse children in the bathroom," as if letting people pee without being harassed were the same as eradicating all the morals and laws against sexual assault that have ever existed, and as if the potential for someone to misuse the rules automatically outweighed every other possible concern. The other thing that really got me, though, was her claim that "the LGBT pushback against a very reasonable law... stinks of totalitarianism." Come again? I can't imagine how it could be more totalitarian for individuals and private businesses to freely decide to protest an innately problematic and unreasonable law than for an intrusive government to insist on checking birth certificates as a prerequisite for letting people use a toilet.

Hypocrisy is Stranger than Fiction

And I keep finding more to add. Some months ago, Target, the major discount retail chain, made the decision to organize toys by type instead of labelling them by gender. In other words, they've discontinued a practice that has only been common for the past few decades anyway. This decision turned out to be inexplicably controversial. Some people seem to be missing that Target isn't changing what toys they're stocking, or trying to tell anyone what to buy. Just the opposite—they're trying not to tell people what not to buy. Similarly, anyone worried that they won't know what to get their kids now should consider that if they can't tell the difference without the labels, there never was a meaningful difference in the first place. But I digress. Target has more recently addressed the bathroom controversy by making an official statement to denounce discrimination and welcome transgender people "to use the restroom or fitting room facility that corresponds with their gender identity" (though, at least in every store in my region, everyone shares a bank of private non-gender-specific fitting rooms to begin with, making that part a non-issue already). Since Target does not now and did not previously police bathroom access, which is typical of publicly accessible bathrooms everywhere I'm familiar with, this makes very little difference in practice. At most, it means that transgender people who are just trying to use the facilities will have one less thing to worry about, and that everyone else should now know better than to expect the store to back them up if they try to make trouble for someone who isn't causing any. However, after the amount of hostility over the toy decision, it should come as no surprise that this isn't going over well with some people, either.

The American Family Association, possibly the most outspoken critic, has bluntly stated, "Target's policy is exactly how sexual predators get access to their victims," though naturally without providing any evidence to support this claim. But it sounds plausible enough if you don't look into the facts, and it provokes a visceral reaction, so that's evidently good enough for them. More recently, the group claims to have started "testing" the policy by sending men into women's rooms. I'm not sure I follow the reasoning behind putting men in the ladies' room because there might be men in the ladies' room. If there are men there because the AFA put them there, that doesn't really prove anything. So what are they hoping to accomplish? If any trouble does occur, it would stem directly from them going out of their way to deliberately defy Target's policy, since, while I admit to being curious about whether they make any effort to appear feminine, I somehow doubt that any of these test subjects identify as anything other than male. And if they take things a step further and decide to cause trouble, then I think it would be fair to say the AFA poses more danger to the general public than transgender people ever have. On the other hand, if nothing happens—if everyone does their business without incident, with no hysteria, no assault, no abuse, no rape, nothing—wouldn't that just demonstrate that they're overreacting? I think their goal is to show how easily men can enter the women's room under Target's policy. That's not what it shows, though. It just shows how easy it has always been for men to enter the women's room. And since, as already noted, Target's policy does not allow for what they're doing, it also shows how easily someone who so wishes can ignore whatever rules are in place. That just illustrates how irrelevant transgender bathroom policy is to keeping women safe, and negates safety as an argument against accommodating trans people. I simply can't come up with any possible outcome to this that actually supports their point.

Maybe they should try putting men in dresses and sending them into men's rooms. I have a feeling that would do more to demonstrate who really has to fear for their safety in public bathrooms. On the other hand, I've also heard reports of apprehensive women carrying guns into bathrooms. If any of the AFA's "scouts" should happen to find themselves staring down the barrel of a gun just for walking through the door, perhaps it would give them an inkling of why trans people often find public bathrooms so terrifying. Not that I'd wish it on them, especially since I'm skeptical that they'd actually learn anything meaningful from the experience regardless.

In Conclusion

It would be better for everyone to focus some of these efforts where they would have a chance to do some good. If bathrooms don't have enough privacy for you, pressure designers and policy makers to build better bathrooms with more privacy. If you don't like the idea of parents having to send young children of the opposite sex into public bathrooms alone, or similar scenarios involving elderly or disabled people with opposite sex caretakers, consider the advantages of unisex bathrooms, or at least push for more family restrooms. If you're worried about victims of sexual assault, do something help to care for those victims—disproportionately many of whom are transgender themselves—instead of acting as though chasing a phantom threat will help anyone. But don't place a false sense of security over the actual safety of real people. Don't try to claim protecting people as your motivation even as you demonize people who have done you no harm. And don't pretend that there's nothing to discuss until you've at least made an effort to understand why so many people are so adamant that there most certainly is.

Reference sources not specifically linked to above and other sites with more details, most of which include more links to more sources, include:
Nondiscrimination Laws Map
15 Experts Debunk Right-Wing Transgender Bathroom Myth
Statistics Show Exactly How Many Times Trans People Have Attacked You in Bathrooms
Everything You Need to Know About the Debate Over Transgender People and Bathrooms
Trans Folks Respond to 'Bathroom Bills' With #WeJustNeedtoPee Selfies
These Are the Transgender Bathroom Wars, in a Nutshell
#JD4PJI: The downfall of the Pacific Justice Institute and the sweet victory of trans youth
When Black People Were Not "Ladies" or "Men"
After North Carolina's Law, Trans Suicide Hotline Calls Double
Why America can't stop fighting over the politics of public restrooms
A Boycott, A Bathroom, and the Fine Art of Discrimination
Bathrooms and Pedophiles
We Don't Need Gender Snoops in Public Bathrooms
Suicide Attempts among Transgender and Gender Non-Conforming Adults
Why Some Welcome Unisex Bathrooms, and Some Steer Clear
Seattle's Absurd, Discriminatory Trans Bathroom Panic
We Don't Need Separate Bathrooms For Men And Women
The Gender-Neutral Bathroom Revolution Is Growing
Workplace Restroom Policies in Light of New Jersey's Gender Identity Protection
An Open Letter to Target

Some Japanese Vocabulary Relevant to Video Games

kWhazit — Mon, 18 Jan 2016 14:04:59 GMT

It feels like I'm past due to make some sort of update, and I've been putting this list together on and off for a while, so here it is.

$CUT$

Miscellaneous Vocabulary Related to Video Games

Common Game Genres

アクション or ACT: Action games. Generally includes arcade-style games, platformers like the Mario games, shoot 'em ups like the Touhou series, fighting games, first- and third-person shooters, and so on.
ロールプレイング or RPG: Role-playing games, like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Sub-genres include the type that blends in action components, the アションRPG or ARPG (action RPG, like Secret of Mana), and the type featuring larger-scale battles, the シミュレーションRPG or SRPG (simulation RPG, like Final Fantasy Tactics, commonly called Tactical RPG or TRPG in English).
アドベンチャー or ADV or AVG: Adventure games, but not necessarily the way you'd expect. In English, the Adventure genre typically means things like King's Quest that combine exploration and item hoarding with puzzle solving. In Japanese, the genre just as often means what we'd call dating sims or visual novels—lots of text, occasional decision points, and much more storyline than interaction. However, it does include both types, as well as some other sub-genres such as room escape and survival horror games.
パズル: Puzzle games, which include things like Minesweeper and Tetris in addition to more obviously puzzling games like quizzes and sliding block puzzles.
シミュレーション or SLG or SIM: Simulation games. Everything from turn-based or real-time strategy games like Civilization or Starcraft, to flight and driving simulators, to construction and management simulations like Sim City, to the sort of game where you're trying to train up a character or team like the Princess Maker series.

Most of the terms below apply primarily to RPGs and games with RPG-like characteristics.

Common Statistic-Related Terms

General

ステータス: Status. May be used either in the sense of statistics (attributes, parameters, etc.) or status effects.
パラメータ: Parameter(s), usually character stats.
能力 (のうりょく): Ability, capability. Roughly equivalent to "stats".
レベル, LVL, LV: Level, a general indication of a character's overall strength and experience.
経験値 (けいけんち), EXP: Experience points, typically in RPGs.
職業 (しょくぎょう), ジョブ: Job, occupation. Otherwise known as character class.

物理 (ぶつり): When used with other terms, or as a shorthand, "physical" (as opposed to magical).
魔法 (まほう): Magic or magical. May be used in combination with other terms or on its own.

Physical Strength and Toughness

HP: Hit points (more often than not). Typically functions as health.
LIFE: Usually a synonym for HP.
体力 (たいりょく): Vitality, stamina, constitution. Depending on the game, this may have to do with hit points, defense power, or both. Infrequently, it may affect offense instead of or in addition to defense, but the key point in all cases is that it relates to physical capability.

力 (ちから): Power. When used by itself as a stat, this most often refers to physical strength, but the 力 character also occurs very frequently in compounds.
パワー: Power, as directly transliterated from English.
強さ (つよさ): Strength.
腕力 (わんりょく): Physical strength (literally, arm strength).
攻撃力 (こうげきりょく): Attack power. Affects how much your attacks hurt. The 力 (りょく) denotes "power" and may be omitted.
守り, 護り (まもり): Defense. Also a term for a protective charm.
防御力 (ぼうぎょりょく): Defense power. Affects how much getting hit hurts. The 力 (りょく) denotes "power" and may be omitted.

Magical and Mental Ability

MP: Magic points (more often than not). Typically functions as energy for spell or skill usage.
MANA: Usually a synonym for MP.
AP: Ability points (more often than not). Sometimes an alternate term for MP, sometimes another type of energy for skills, other times these are spent to learn abilities.
SP: Skill points (more often than not). Sometimes an alternate term for MP, sometimes another type of energy for skills, other times these are spent to learn abilities.
TP: Technique points (more often than not). Sometimes an alternate term for MP, sometimes another type of energy for skills, other times these are spent to learn abilities.
消費 (しょうひ): Consumption. You won't see that as its own stat, but some items or skills may affect how much MP, etc., it costs to use abilities.

精力 (せいりょく): Energy, spirit. This typically relates in some way to magical ability, either strength or capacity. Alternately, games with sexual content may use this as a measure of staying power for that sort of activity, possibly instead of HP or MP.
魔力 (まりょく): Magical power. This typically relates in some way to magical ability, either strength or capacity.
魔法力 (まほうりょく): Magical power. This typically relates in some way to magical ability, either strength or capacity.
知性 (ちせい): Intelligence. Often affects magical abilities, especially offensive ones.
知力 (ちりょく): Intelligence again, though this term seems to imply an ability to apply that intelligence beyond simply having it.
精神 (せいしん): Spirit. Often affects magical abilities, especially defensive ones.
信仰 (しんこう): Faith. May affect healing and holy magic for cleric types, for instance.
魔法攻撃力 (まほうこうげきりょく): Magical attack power. Affects how well your spells work. The 力 (りょく) denotes "power" and may be omitted. Sometimes abbreviated as 魔攻.
魔法防御力 (まほうぼうぎょりょく): Magical defense power. Affects how much getting hit by magic hurts. The 力 (りょく) denotes "power" and may be omitted. Sometimes abbreviated as 魔防.

Quickness and Coordination

速さ (はやさ): Speed. (the noun form of 速い, "fast")
速度 (そくど): Speed. (a painfully literal translation would be "degree of fastness")
スピード: Speed, as directly transliterated from English.
敏捷性 (びんしょうせい): Quickness. Basically speed again. The 性 may be omitted.
器用 (きよう): Dexterity. Likely to influence things like accuracy in general and possibly also skill or damage with weapons like bows.
素早さ (すばやさ): Agility. Likely to influence things like accuracy and evasiveness, in addition to or instead of how quickly the character can act.
命中率 (めいちゅうりつ): Accuracy, hit rate. The 率 (りつ) denotes "rate" and may be omitted.
回避率 (かいひりつ): Evasion. The 率 (りつ) denotes "rate" and may be omitted.
魔法回避率 (まほうかいひりつ): Magic evasion. The 率 (りつ) denotes "rate" and may be omitted. Sometimes abbreviated as 魔避.

Common Skill-Related Terms

技 (わざ): Skill, art, technique. A generic term for anything more complicated than just swinging a weapon.
特技 (とくぎ): Same as 技, but with the implication that it's more specialized or possibly unique to the user or class.
奥義 (おうぎ): Secret/advanced art.
必殺 (ひっさつ): Special attack. Literally means "certain kill".
術 (じゅつ): Art, technique. May have more supernatural implications than 技, or not, such as...
剣術 (けんじゅつ): Swordplay.
魔法 (まほう): Magic, spells.
魔導 (まどう): Sorcery, more or less. The term may appear in place of 魔法, for effect more than anything else, I think.
魔法剣 (まほうけん): A style of magic, literally "magic sword", that involves channeling a spell through the blade of a sword. Other weapons may substitute for swords, and Chrono Trigger even uses 魔法ロボ (magic Robo) in some cooperative skill descriptions.
忍法 (にんぽう): Ninja arts, usually of the magical sort.
黒魔法 (くろまほう): Black magic (usually damaging and weakening spells)
白魔法 (しろまほう): White magic (usually healing and strengthening spells)
召喚 (しょうかん): Summoning.
魔術 (まじゅつ): Magic, usually of a more destructive variety. Comparable to black magic.
法術 (ほうじゅつ): Typically refers to a healing-oriented branch of magic, comparable to white magic. I get this impression this is conceptually more "order magic" whereas 魔術 is more "chaos magic". Also note that the 魔 of 魔術 and the 法 of 法術 put together form 魔法, the generic term for magic.

Terms Related to Damage and Effectiveness

General

ダメージ: Damage.
クリティカル: Critical. Most often refers to critical hits (that occur randomly and inflict bonus damage), but may also mean critical (dangerously low) health.
会心 (かいしん): Literally "satisfying". Some games, such as the Dragon Quest series, use this in place of "critical" to describe the randomly occurring hits that hit harder than usual.
回復 (かいふく): Recovery. May indicate healing or status recovery, or both.
弱点 (じゃくてん): Weakness.
耐性 (たいせい): Resistance, typically used as a suffix with a status effect or damage type (e.g., 毒耐性 is poison resistance). Depending on the game, this may indicate complete immunity, when used with status effects, rather than partial resistance.
半減 (はんげん): Reduction by half. Common as a type of elemental resistance.
軽減 (けいげん): Reduction, in a non-specific amount.
無効 (むこう): No effect, invalidation (e.g., 雷無効 indicates immunity to thunder damage).
吸収 (きゅうしゅう): Absorption. When used defensively and with a damage type, this means damage of that type will heal instead of hurting. This can also refer to draining attacks (those that take HP or MP from the target and give it to the user).
防御無視 (ぼうぎょむし): Defense-ignoring
属性 (ぞくせい): Meaning "attribute" or "trait", it functions as a general term for damage type. In English parlance, the word "element" often serves the same purpose. For instance, 水属性 equates to "water-elemental".

Some games may also use symbols to indicate how well armor, for example, protects against various damage types. For instance, ○ or ◎ may indicate bonuses, and △ or × penalties, but it depends on the specific game.

Some attacks may have more than one damage type. How multiple types work depends on the game, and may include using whichever works best for the attacker, using whichever most benefits the defender, multiplying all the modifiers together, adding all the multipliers together, or something else entirely.

Similarly, the way defenses combine varies from game to game, though most commonly combining a weakness with a resistance will either cause the resistance to override the weakness or cause both of them to cancel each other out.

Physical Damage Types

物理 (ぶつり): Physical
斬 or 切: Slashing (bladed slicing weapons such as katanas)
壊 or 打: Bludgeoning (blunt-force trauma weapons such as maces)
突 or 刺: Piercing (pointy stabbing weapons such as spears)
射: Shot (arrows, bullets). Sometimes functions as its own type instead of as piercing.

In games that use the slashing/bludgeoning/piercing system, unarmed attacks often act as bludgeoning, because fists. Some weapons may cover multiple types, such as a longsword that can either stab or slash, a spiked mace that both smashes and pierces, or a heavy axe that crushes as it cleaves. How multiple types work depends on the game, but typically any that uses this sort of system should give you the benefit of whichever type works best, which makes sense if you think about it (something with resistance to cutting but not squashing shouldn't fare very well against that heavy axe).

Elemental Damage Types

魔法 (まほう): Magic/magical
火 (ひ), 炎 (ほのお), 火炎 (かえん): Fire/flame
熱 (ねつ): Heat
氷 (こおり): Ice
冷気 (れいき), 冷 (れい): Cold
雷 (かみなり or いかづち): Thunder/lightning
水 (みず): Water
風 (かぜ): Wind
大地 (だいち), 土 (つち), 地 (ち): Earth/ground/soil
毒 (どく): Poison
聖 (せい), 聖なる (せいなる): Holy
光 (ひかり): Light
邪悪 (じゃあく), 邪 (よこしま): Evil
闇 (やみ), 暗黒 (あんこく): Dark
魔 (ま): Sometimes comes up as a type vaguely akin to, but different from, dark or evil. It's long been a frustration of mine that 魔 doesn't translate well.
無属性 (むぞくせい): No trait ("non-elemental")
耐性無視 (たいせいむし): Literally "ignores resistances". I've seen this as a name for traitless damage, in some games where every attack that isn't this has at least one damage type. This, and non-elemental damage in general, has the advantage of working against any opponent, but the disadvantage of never striking a weakness.

Bonuses against Enemy Type

対 (たい) as a prefix indicates "anti-", typically giving extra damage against a certain category of enemy. For example...

対魚: Anti-fish (or sea creatures in general)
対水棲: Anti-aquatic life
対鳥: Anti-bird (or flying creatures in general)
対昆虫: Anti-insect
対爬虫: Anti-reptile
対霊: Anti-spirit/ghost
対不死: Anti-undead
対獣: Anti-beast (wolves, tigers, etc.)
対竜: Anti-dragon
対人間: Anti-human
対機械: Anti-machine
対魔: Anti-demon, anti-mage, anti-supernatural. However, 退魔 (たいま) appears more commonly for demon-slaying attacks, where 退 in this context basically translates to "drive out".

Some common status conditions

普通 (ふつう): Normal.
ステータス異常 (いじょう): Status abnormality, otherwise known as a negative status effect.
戦闘不能 (せんとうふのう): Incapacitation, literally "incapable of combat". The most common term for what's often loosely called "dead", though there are others, such as...
気絶 (きぜつ): Unconscious. And every so often a game will just go ahead and outright use...
死亡 (しぼう), 死 (し): Dead. They tend to avoid this one, though, for obvious plot-related reasons.
即死 (そくし): Instant death. Any attack that directly, instead of through damage, causes whichever form of "dead" the game uses.
石化 (せきか), 石 (いし): Petrification/stone. Typically acts as an alternate form of "deadness" with different causes, cures, and preventative measures.
毒 (どく): Poison. Typically this inflicts damage over time, and it may also hinder offense or defense.
火傷 (やけど): Burns. May have a gradual damage effect like poison, lower attributes, or both.
麻痺 (まひ): Paralysis. Typically prevents or at least hinders taking action. Sometimes abbreviated as 痺.
感電 (かんでん): Shocked. May take the place of paralysis, or perhaps lower stats.
睡眠 (すいみん), 眠り (ねむり): Sleep. Typically prevents taking action, also likely to increase vulnerability, but a hit tends to remove it. Sometimes abbreviated as 眠.
ストップ: Stop. Typically prevents taking action. Often also halts other time-related effects, like periodic poison damage or remaining time of temporary status effects.
凍結 (とうけつ): Frozen. Yet another "can't act" status. Might react to fire by thawing, or shatter when struck.
暗闇 (くらやみ): Darkness. Typically lowers accuracy and evasion. Alternately (or additionally), might darken or black out the screen, hindering the player's view, particularly in games with an action component. Sometimes abbreviated using either of the two kanji.
ブラインド: Blind. An alternate term for what's more commonly called 暗闇.
沈黙 (ちんもく): Silence. Typically prevents spell usage. Sometimes abbreviated as 黙.
封印 (ふういん): Sealed. Typically prevents spell or skill usage. Sometimes abbreviated as 封.
混乱 (こんらん): Confusion. Typically causes uncontrollable random actions. Might reverse or scramble controls in a game with an action component. Sometimes abbreviated using either kanji, but I think 乱 is the more common one.
呪い (のろい): Cursed. Typically impedes combat ability somehow, such as by applying a penalty to stats.
ゾンビ: Zombie. May be weakened, uncontrollable, or other effects, depending on the game.
無敵 (むてき): Invulnerable.

Terms Related to Targeting

相手 (あいて): Roughly "the other party". Usually means an enemy in a combat context.
敵 (てき): Enemy/enemies
味方 (みかた): Ally/allies
仲間 (なかま): Teammate(s)
自分 (じぶん), 本人 (ほんにん): Self
使用した人 (しようしたひと): User
一体 or １体 (いったい), 単体 (たんたい): Single
一匹 or １匹 (いっぴき): Single (normally animal or monster)
一人 or １人 (ひとり): Single (person)
複数 (ふくすう): Multiple
全体 (ぜんたい), 全員 (ぜんいん), 全て (すべて): All
敵・味方全体 (てき・みかたぜんたい), 敵味方全て (てきみかたすべて), and similar: All allies and enemies

This isn't meant to be a comprehensive list, but feel free to suggest additions and revisions, or to request information about other terms you may have seen on status screens.

On Lavatories

kWhazit — Mon, 17 Aug 2015 20:00:32 GMT

    There's a parody of the Christmas carol "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen" called "The Restroom Door Said Gentlemen". In short, the singer enters the wrong bathroom after some prankster switches the signs, where he finds "two nuns, three old ladies, and a nurse" who turn on him before he's realized what's going on. It's played for laughs, but considering he meant no harm and didn't even begin to do anything threatening, it hardly seems fair that he's hit with a can of mace and a handbag before he even gets half a chance to explain himself. Ending up with "two black eyes and one high heel up [his] behind" feels like something he ought to be pressing charges for. I get that men are expected to stay out of the women's bathroom, and vice versa (though apparently to a lesser extent, given that most people seem to be generally fine with women using the men's room when the women's room is crowded), but that reaction seems a bit excessive. Yet he might have problems even trying to go to the authorities, since the laws in some places are such that he's committed a crime just by walking through that door. That honestly shocked me when I first heard about it. Social disapproval is one thing, but legal prohibition? What a waste of law enforcement.
   Which brings me to what led to this posting, though I've been sitting on it for a few months. I was disturbed after seeing an article shared on facebook, about efforts somewhere to promote non-gendered bathrooms—instead of, or in addition to, men's rooms and women's rooms, there would just be generic bathrooms, where people could simply go and dispose of bodily wastes regardless of who they were. Now, it wasn't either this proposal or the article itself that I had a problem with. It was the perplexing amount of hostility in some of the opposition to the notion. I recall, in particular, a vehement assertion that only perverts could possibly approve of such a thing. Well. I suppose that all depends on how you define "pervert".
   To start with, there's simply too much diversity in people for any statement like that to be plausible. People can come up so many reasons for so many things that it's difficult to imagine that not a single person has any reasons at all that are even slightly legitimate. Whether these reasons outweigh the opposing reasons or whether there would be a better way to address them or whether they're even logically sound to begin with are all separate questions. It's unfair and intellectually dishonest to simply dismiss these reasons out of hand, much less immediately turn to name-calling. To quote someone who put it rather well, "There are very real reasons why people feel the way they do. ...people with strong opinions about various social matters have those opinions for reasons that, if nothing else, are very real to them, and might even have been borne out of pain." (from author commentary for EGS strip posted 2015-04-27).
   Anyway, back to the main point. Single-occupancy bathrooms, as a specific case, have no legitimate reason for gender designation. There's one person in there at a time, so privacy isn't an issue, safety isn't an issue, but-think-of-the-children doesn't come into it... seriously, if anyone can come up with a better reason than "that's just the way we do things", feel free to let me know. (EDIT: I've come across one reason, but I wouldn't call it "better". The law in many jurisdictions requires that facilities be available for both women and men. That's understandable, but the way some of these laws are worded means that a building with three single-occupancy unisex bathrooms, for example, legally counts as having no bathrooms. Which makes no sense, but that happens far too often when the law gets involved.) And taking the signs off ought to help mothers with young sons or fathers with young daughters, at least. In the more general case, if it's such a bad idea to provide non-gendered bathrooms—or, on a related note, to formally sanction transgender people using the bathroom that matches their expressed gender—then surely there are more convincing arguments than calling anyone who might consider allowing it a pervert. I'm having difficulty coming up with any that don't fall apart on examination, though.

   Does the question of privacy concern you? Any decent bathroom should provide adequate privacy, and if it doesn't, you should direct your complaints at the designers, not the users. On that note, the same could be argued of dressing rooms and even locker rooms, unless you're trying to say that you don't care who sees you naked as long as they have the same bits between their legs as you do, and that frankly seems silly. Whether strangers can see you naked or not at all, or at least whether they're being abusive about it, should matter more than who those strangers happen to be. Shouldn't it?
   Does it concern you that children might seeing things they shouldn't? That gets back to the privacy thing again. It shouldn't be an issue. Besides, if you actually care about your kids, beyond using them as pawns in an argument, maybe you should be keeping an eye them. Beyond that, children are surprisingly resilient, and, more to the point, generally don't care about these things, and probably won't pay any attention to them to begin with, until and unless you make a fuss about them.
   Does it concern you that people might abuse their access to perpetrate some improper activity? Anything can happen, but shouldn't people face consequences for what they actually do, not what they might do? Otherwise we're back to the days of trying to ban VCRs (or diskettes, or CDs, or the Internet, or...) because people could use them to make illegal copies of things, instead of focusing on the illegal copying itself (though that's a whole other can of worms). It should be pretty easy to tell when someone is behaving inappropriately (if it's not, then that's again a problem with the bathroom itself), and to respond accordingly. Besides that, it's a possibility no matter who is allowed in. There's no simple way to categorize people so that everyone any given group will be harmless. Ultimately, there's no telling what anyone will do, and what's between their legs is hardly an assurance of innocence. If you take seriously such worries about what other people might do, then you should already be watching your back and wary of strangers to some extent.
   Does it concern you because it's against your religion? Well, first there's the question of whether it actually is, and not just a case of your prejudices assuming so and using your religion as an excuse. But either way, try coming back to this one after beef is banned because Hinduism considers the cow sacred, bacon is banned because Muslims don't eat pork, lying is banned because Thou Shalt Not Bear False Witness, and rock and roll is banned because it's the devil's music or whatever that particular bit of hysteria is about. That's not how things work here. If you object to something, feel free to not do it, but that doesn't give you the right to make anyone else follow suit.
   Does it concern you that letting someone with a penis and someone with a vagina empty their bladders in different private stalls in the same general space will somehow lead to the downfall of society, or something similarly ominous? How? I've seen hysterical claims that similarly innocuous things are causing the downfall of America, but really, now. Maybe you should think that one through a little more.
   Does it concern you that people who don't conform to the customary either/or male/female gender binary would be able to deal with a basic biological necessity in a civilized manner, while having a legal recourse in case of harassment or worse, instead of having to worry about potentially being arrested for simply going about their business? Yeah, it's definitely time to rethink your priorities.

And if you think it's acceptable to enforce restroom segregation by checking people's genitalia, then I think it's time to consider rethinking who's really acting like a pervert.

Tricky Japanese terms: さすが

kWhazit — Thu, 02 Jul 2015 13:32:36 GMT

Related to やっぱり, but subtly different, さすが is typically used when remarking on something that affirms an expectation or assumption based on a reputation or role that involves the object of the expectation being noticeably different from ordinary. It could be something good, bad, or just strange, but absolutely not commonplace and boring. It also seems to carry a sense of being impressed despite having already expected something impressive.$CUT$

A typical usage is to praise people for living up to the expectations of others. As an example, early in Chrono Trigger, a prototype teleporter malfunction results in a young woman vanishing, so Crono, the protagonist, picks up the pendant that apparently triggered the malfunction and steps onto the device, prompting this line: 「後を追うってのかクロノ。さすがは男だぜ！」 ("So, you're going after her, Crono. Way to be a man!"). Putting aside the question of whether this actually has anything to do with being a man, the speaker, at least, has certain beliefs about what a real man is supposed to do in a situation like this, and Crono's actions meet with his approval.

さすが can also be used, often in a form like さすがの～も or さすがに～も and in a negative sentence, where it indicates that not even someone like that is capable of this particular feat, highlighting how difficult or otherwise extreme the action would be. "You may be good," it says, "but you're not that good." Or bad, since it can also express depths of evil even the villains wouldn't stoop to, like 「さすがの暗殺者もあんなことはしない」 ("Even an assassin [who might be thought capable of anything] wouldn't do something like that"), or just simply weird, like if you want to call something so bizarre that not even your friend with the peculiar tastes would like it. To use an example that isn't in a negative sentence, take this line from an Ar tonelico 2 Cosmosphere: 「だって、この世界に来て早々「生け贄になれ！」なんて言ったら、さすがの貴方でも逃げるでしょ？」 ("I mean, if I said, 'Be a sacrifice!' right after you came to this world, even you [regardless of however brave and loyal you may be] would run away, right?").

In a related nuance, さすがに can be used in a sense that roughly means things aren't likely to work out as well as hoped, or similarly, something like "I had thought I would be capable of more than I'm turning out to be". So 「さすがに入りたくない」 corresponds to something like "[Maybe I'm wimping out, but] I really don't want to go in there." It also overlaps with やっぱり to some extent, though these cases feel more like "it's hardly surprising that X" than "X, just as expected" to me... though I'm not sure I can explain why.

To give a brief comparison of やっぱり and さすが,

「やっぱり行きたくない」 feels more like: I wasn't really interested in going to begin with, but I thought it over a bit anyway. After some consideration, I still don't want to go.
「さすがに行きたくない」 feels more like: Most people in my position wouldn't want to go, and maybe I'm being disappointingly average, but neither do I.

Or let's say Link just saved a town.

「やっぱり勇者ですね」: Well, that settles it. Some may have had their doubts, but it turns out he really is a hero.
「さすがは勇者ですね」: He's a hero, all right, and he's just gone and done something excitingly heroic again.

Secret of Mana / Seiken Densetsu 2 / Legend of the Holy Sword 2 in the works

kWhazit — Sun, 17 May 2015 13:45:00 GMT

So I've finally gotten around to putting together full text dumps from the game, with everything decoded except control codes (movement, sound effects, music changes, and so on are all lumped in with the text, instead of the text being in its own block and called by reference like it is in most of the other games I've dealt with). Aided by a reasonably functional editor, and a gamefaqs message thread with a remarkable amount of technical data as reference, and BizHawk's RAM Watch functionality to test some things, the section is shaping up rather nicely.

It's not ready to be posted yet, but for now, here's a list of some findings$CUT$ I thought were interesting and possibly surprising.

General technical data:

Hit rate and evade rate are, by most standards, weird. Though misses are of course possible, especially against evasive enemies, the main thing high hit or evade does is to minimize both the chance and the severity of penalties to effective attack or defense power.
There are also hit and evade rates for magic. Though magic can't miss outright, both offense and defense can suffer from penalties, much like physical attacks.
Random variation is added to both attack and defense, but only when not penalized for failing a hit or evade check.
Mana energy (number of seeds activated) does more than just increase maximum spell level. The value squared is also added to the effectiveness of attacks and spells, except when they get the penalty for failing their hit check.
Critical hits appear to ignore defense in addition to doubling attack power. A hit that is not critical cannot inflict more than (999 - target's effective defense) damage. This is why attacks against the final boss most typically cause a bit under 550 damage (it has a game-highest 450 defense).

Armor data:

All headgear gives +23 evasion and +23 magic evade. All body armor gives +37 evasion and +15 magic evade. All accessories give +15 evasion and +37 magic evade. Get a full set of equipment as soon as you can!
Some armors give stat bonuses, raising Strength, Agility, Vitality, or Intelligence (or a combination of them) by 5. This is documented on any number of websites, but other than checking your status screen before and after each change, the game itself doesn't seem to give any indication of this. There's also a flag set for some of them that looks like it ought to raise Spirit, but it has no effect.
There are some other bits in the stat bonuses byte that have the same value for all armor/headgear/accessories, and might be meant to change the amount of the bonus.
Some armors prevent certain status effects. Again, this is documented here and there, but the game itself gives no indication of it. One useful one is that the Ochu Ring (Ivy Amulet), sold in the town by a mountain full of flowers that like to spam Sleep Flower, prevents characters from being put to sleep.
The armor data has two bytes that are set to 0x00 for everything. I expect one was meant to give an elemental affinity. The other I'm less sure of, but bonus defense against specific monster groups seems like a good possibility.
The Ruby Armet, a 46 defense / 46 magic defense helmet for The Girl, appears to be unobtainable.

Weapon data:

Most level 9 weapons have no special traits, other than slightly higher attack power than the level 8 version. Other than the Sword of Mana (which is deliberately overpowered and only supposed to be obtained by special means in the very final battle), the only exception is the Fuuma Shuriken (Ninja's Trump), which keeps the Shuriken's critical rate bonus. However, that's not generally such a big deal, since it turns out that most of the special bonuses weapons get are largely useless anyway. More specifically...
Racial bonuses are glitched and do not work. All those "effective against"s do nothing.
Every weapon that has +2 to a stat in its description actually gives only +1. This is generally too little to make a meaningful difference.
However, critical rate bonuses and, of course, status effects work just fine, so there's that.
Speaking of critical hit rate, Bows, Boomerangs, and Javelins have half the critical hit rate of the other weapons.
The Diamond Flail (Nimbus Chain), Masamune, and Deathstrike Bow (Doom Bow) give a critical hit rate bonus of 10 per 256 hits. The Shuriken and Fuuma Shuriken (Ninja's Trump) give a bonus of 5 per 256 hits. (these numbers account for the halved rate for weapon type where applicable)
In addition to letting you charge attacks higher, gaining weapon skill levels also provides a small bonus to critical hit rate (3 per 256 hits for most weapons, or 3 per 512 hits for the halved ones).
Each character also has an innate bonus to critical hit rate, which is added after all the weapon modifiers (meaning it's not halved regardless of weapon). The Girl's bonus (10 per 256 hits) is twice a large as The Boy's and The Sprite's (5 per 256 hits).

Magic data:

At equal levels, Freeze is as powerful as Earthquake (Earth Slide), Thunderbolt, and Explode(r). So are Dark Force and Saint (Lucent) Beam.
Burst has the most raw power of any spell, but is hindered by being gained so late in the game and being unable to take advantage of a weakness. Conversely, over a dozen enemies, including several bosses, resist it.
Lava Wave is weaker than Fireball. Its only discernible advantage is that it's easier to spam.
All Saber spells give a damage bonus based on spell level and number of targets. They also change the weapon's element, but due to a glitch, this normally has no effect. As a result, Thunder Saber and Holy (Light) Saber are only good for the attack bonus.
Refresh (Remedy) doesn't remove status effects directly, instead reducing their remaining duration. Usually, though, the spell is strong enough, and durations short enough, that it works out to the same thing.
Antimagic (Dispel Magic) works similarly for most effects. When used against Countermagic (Wall), it removes a number of remaining uses, depending on spell level.
Evil Gate works sort of like a Gravity spell except that it averages the target's current and maximum hit points instead of going off just the current. Other spells normally kill faster, though, and they don't cost as much to cast. It does have the advantage of ignoring magic defense, at least.
Twinkle (Lucid) Barrier functions similarly to the Golem summon in some Final Fantasy games, taking a set amount of damage in place of the target. The amount increases with level, but is divided by the number of targets, and also capped at the target's max HP. Furthermore, the shield has reduced defense as compared to the target, especially when the spell is multitargeted.
Spell animations use new data for every two levels, though for many spells some, or even all, of the data just duplicates the previous levels. The interesting part is that not only do the definitions go up to level 8 (and 9), but each spell also has an entry for level 10 and 11. The data for levels 10 and 11 is identical to the data for levels 8 and 9 in all cases, but that fact that it exists at all is curious.
On that note, most spells continue to work normally and increase in strength if spell level is artificially set above level 8. The Saber spell attack bonus and Evil Gate's damage divide by zero when single-targeted at level 10, giving no bonus for Sabers and 999 damage for Evil Gate. At level 11, Sabers continue to provide no bonus, while Evil Gate does apparently nothing at all.
Speaking of spell levels... many players know that spells raised to level 8 plus some additional experience have a chance of having a "super" effect that (usually) has a special animation and also stops time while the animation is playing. What's not so obvious is that this is the only time the spell acts as level 8. When a level 8 spell does not use the "super" effect, the game treats it as a level 7 spell.

Monster data:

Most monsters have no defense or magic defense. Those with no defense also have no evasion, and those with no magic defense also have no magic evade. However, every monster with any defense also has evasion in the 90s, and every monster with any magic defense also has 99 magic evade. This is presumably due to the odd side effects of low evade mentioned above under general technical data.
Nearly every monster has a category (race/type/whatever), but most don't matter due to weapon bonuses against them not working. However undead/demon monsters reverse HP draining effects used against them, and incorporeal monsters reverse MP draining effects used against them.
Monsters with the Moon or Wood element seem to resist their own element (which is normal), but unlike the other elements, have no special vulnerability to the opposite. As noted above, this hinders the usefulness of Burst, since it can never take advantage of a weakness.

Status effects:

Most status effects have an associated timer and will wear off when the timer expires. Being shrunken is one of the few exceptions.
For whatever reason, shrinking someone with the Munchkin Hammer (Midge Mallet) also sets the timer for Moogle to its maximum value (which equates to 85 seconds).
Many status effects will remove Saber spells as a side effect. This is reportedly due to them force-equipping special internal "weapons" to trigger their graphical effects.
There's an unused status effect, からみつき, which translates to "Tangled" and is called "TANGLED UP" in the list of status effects in the English version. This is not the same as the status from the Speed Down spell and several weapons (that's おもり, which translates to "Heavy" and is called "SLOWED DOWN" in the English version). Based on what appears to be the message for when it's inflicted, this status would have prevented its victim from moving for the duration.

Story and events:

It's probably common knowledge that Gemma (Jema) will revive The Boy as needed if his fight with the Mantis Ant goes badly. It's also not possible to get a Game Over before this point. If you manage to die before then, The Boy regains consciousness where he found the sword, and continues from there.
Weapon Orbs aren't a thing in the Japanese text. The weapons gain Weapon Power instead. This does make it hard to explain how NPCs can give it to you, though.
Goblins won't ambush The Boy if he never talked to the soldiers outside the Water Temple who are preparing to go after the witch. It's unclear whether this is deliberate or just the result of reusing event flags without being careful enough about it.
Avoiding the Goblin ambush means The Boy doesn't meet The Girl there, so she won't immediately join him if they encounter each other in Pandora, which also means he can go talk to her father and suitor in the meeting room. If he then goes to her house, things get a bit weird, with The Girl vanishing when talked to instead of walking out (apparently the event scripts were never completed), and her father trying to say her name even though it was never set.
If The Girl is not in the party when The Boy heads to the witch's forest, he finds her under attack by Werewolves. This can lead to a rarely-seen event. Finish the events in Dwarf Village so that The Sprite joins the party. Then, make sure The Sprite finishes off the Werewolves when The Boy is dead. Having The Sprite talk to The Girl always gets a special reaction, but since only The Boy talking to her can advance the story, if he's dead she'll also revive and heal the party, saying something about an item she bought from Nikita (Neko). This is the only time she'll provide any healing at all in this event.

Other than playing around with spells, I've only gotten up to saving Undine so far, so who knows what else might lay in store!

If you have any requests for NPC dialog or other text you'd like to see that I might be inclined to skip otherwise, or anything to try doing along the way that might have interesting results, feel free to share in the comments.

Tricky (or at least often mishandled) Japanese terms: やっぱり (also やはり)

kWhazit — Fri, 13 Feb 2015 16:35:10 GMT

An actual site update is in the works, with the largest part being alternate endings and other additions to the Chrono Trigger page, but in the meantime, have a blog entry.

I've seen やっぱり all too often blindly translated to "as expected". While that isn't a bad approximation of the meaning, it's frequently unnatural in a sentence. So, that brings up the question of what exactly やっぱり is used for.$CUT$ Basically, it appears when a situation is confirmed to be in agreement with previous expectations or assumptions.

やっぱり is derived from the more formal and proper やはり. The kanji 矢(っ)張り are ateji, chosen based on pronunciation with no regard to meaning, and this may be why both forms of the word are typically written in hiragana.

The goo online dictionary that I like to use lists three common meanings:

Having no difference from what had previously been, or from what a comparable other is like. One example given is 「あなたは今もやっぱりあの店へ行きますか」 ("Do you still go to that shop now?"), where the assumption is that a situation that used to be the case (you go to that shop) remains true. Asking the question at all suggests that I don't know for certain whether you still do, but including やっぱり means I'm fairly confident that you probably do.
Turning out just as anticipated. This is the flavor that's closest to the stock "as expected" translation. Their example is 「彼はやっぱり来なかった」 ("As expected, he never came.").
Coming to the same conclusion after thinking things over. One example given is 「随分迷ったが、やっぱり行くのはやめにした」 ("I had a heck of a time deciding, but decided to pass on going after all."). Using やっぱり here means that while I might have wavered, my first impulse had been to not go, and in the end I didn't change my mind about it. An alternate interpretation in some cases is to take as the initial default case what an impartial observer might expect, so here that would mean that someone reading the story of my life would have expected me not to go.

Taking an example from Chrono Trigger, one of the time-traveling characters has the following line in the ruined future, after discovering footage of the catastrophe that is dated nearly a thousand years after what they know as the present: 「じゃあ、やっぱりここは私達の未来なの！？」 ("Then this really is our future!?"). To this point, they had speculated that they might be in the future, but only now are they certain. This fits best with meaning (2).

There's a fairly good example of meaning (3) in the third Legend of Zelda game. One necessary step in the quest is to visit the Zora king to buy flippers that enable swimming in deep water. However, he charges an outrageous 500 rupees for them (in a game where you can't carry more than 999). At this point in the conversation, one of your options is 「やっぱりやめる」—basically a "never mind that after all". This may seem like a change of mind, and therefore clashing with the meaning explained, but I think it works here because backing down at this point would agree with your likely initial reaction of "That's crazy!" to his demands.

Another flavor of meaning I see now and then is a reaffirmation of an opinion already held. Anyway, as an example, one of the NPC lines in Final Fantasy VI goes 「やっぱり自由が一番！」 ("Freedom really is the greatest!"). It's not as though this is a new idea for the character, or a confirmation of a suspicion, but it's the first taste of real freedom after a time of occupation, and it's every bit as good as remembered. This probably fits best with meaning (1).

Similarly, やっぱり can be used when coming to a conclusion that seems obvious in retrospect, such as in Breath of Fire II when Sten decides he wants a date with both Nina and Lin Pu (Katt) instead of just one of them: 「あ、やっぱり　りょうほうに　しよう」

If you're translating something, try adding a little variety with phrases like "it figures" or "I knew it!" instead of the lackluster "as expected" when used as an interjection, or at least consider something a bit more natural like "I thought so" or "I figured as much". "I should have known" also works well in some contexts. Meaning (3) often equates well with phrases like "it really is" and "after all" depending on usage. Meaning (1) tends to be trickier, in that the essential meaning is often well represented by "still" (or "also" when comparing to a similar person or thing), but that doesn't do a very good job of conveying that it's expected to still be that way. Experiment with a few variations to see what works best in a given case.