The genre presentations certainly expanded ideas and views. It showed me many things I never knew. One of the major thing I learnt from these presentation is the popular culture circling around creating new weird science, fringe science. It involves wide variety of unique interesting things such as shapeshifting, evolving, invisibility and many others. It strongly sparked our interest and hook us to it. Fringe science is certainly a useful tool in order to create new ideas that will work well for inspirations or new storyline.

Another one I learnt is the depth of fantasy. It spreads to so many different flavor. Breaking the law of physics, creating a great eye-candy service is definitely important in games. All gamers are always expecting a wow factor and fantasy is capable of doing so, as it is not bounded by reality. Fantasy also blends well with science. I am not saying about science fiction, but rather the traditional mainstream science. It is possible to have a world similar to reality, involving guns, tanks and ships, fighting against fantasy creatures like dragons or orcs. We can adjust the level of reality in the fight as well, this is how huge fantasy is able to do. It has no boundaries, no limit to our imagination.

Third new major thing I learnt is the cause of war. War isn't bounded by ambition or domination. Good and evil is quite classic nowadays, newer ideas involves both side suffering a certain thing that drives them to a fight or war. Noone is evil, it only differs with their ideology or truth. The truth a person learns might be different with another person, misunderstandings and fight for belief is enough to cause war. Such examples was shown to me through the holy war. Crusaders risked their life into this epic conquest for the sake of their belief, it is quite unbelievable as throughout the generation, most conquest were due to hunger and lust for power. Examples of such is easy, Mongols and Rome, both aimed for world domination.

Fourth major thing I learnt is that horror isn't as repulsive as it is in the past. I have always hated horror and avoided that theme. However, the current state of horror isn't as painful or hurting as the classical horror. Not everything that is gory or sick is horror. Terrorism apparently is horror as well. This made me realise something, I have been watching things of horror genre without realising them being horror. It seems horror is bigger than I thought, psychological things, as long as it has negative impact on our mentality, is considered horror.

Fifth, reality is always more boring and impactful than fantasy. Everything that involves reality is much more difficult to accept and painful. Once you bring the famed shooting games like Left for Dead to reality, it will become total nightmare. Games brought to reality is definitely a no, it will bring chaos and unimaginable horror. Reality is boring by itself, when we flavor it with game, it will become interesting, however there is a limit to it. Many attempted to bring game to reality, such as Amazing race or Survivor. This is to color life more, and makes life more enjoyable. However too much game to reality is a spell for disaster.

One genre I thought of is actually a psycho-horror, a psychological horror involving traumas and mental breakdown. Until now, this genre isn't really labeled as anything, it could be horror, at the same time tragedy. However, as it is gaining popularity, it is time we set a genre of its own for such circumstances. A good form involves blackmailing and suicide. The theme can be anything, it can involve fantasy, sci-fi or reality. It only requires conflict and ambition to b triggered. Once there is ambition, it means there will be a desperate thoughts to achieve something with any method, even if someone is to be sacrificed or scapegoat.

Future gaming will without doubt be more immersive than ever. Tokyo Game Show 2010 has shown how far human technology has developed for games. Virtual games has been invented. Even games that uses your thoughts to control has been invented. It is not far for virtual games to be globalised as a common tools of gaming for everyone, just like Wii, Xbox360 and PS3. In probably 10 years from now, games will all be virtual. For non-gamers, casual games will be more accessible anywhere, everywhere and anytime. The player can stop and continue playing whenever he wishes to. Education and training will also involves game more than ever. This was due to games being proven to increase effectiveness in learning. This was shown in the game called Tactical Iraqi, used by US military to train soldiers to speak Iraq language, as well as know more about their culture.

As people gets more and more creative, new ideas expanded and new things introduced. Games and media will definitely open to new genres, it could be something more abstract than abstract, like a more fantasy surrealism. Games will be introduced to reality, afterall, lifes a game. However it will definitely be more moderate than games in cyber world, especially due to the fact that we have no restart button or extra lifes. Theres only 1 chance.

Regarding the creativity in creating creativity game, it is actually far more limited than the creativity created through creativity game. This is due to the limitations we had in creating the creativity game. There are certain guidelines to follow, or else it would not be a creativity game anymore. A game that is too complete isn't a creativity game. However a game that is too incomplete will be to abstract. The creativity in creating the creativity game is very limited, however we let things develop and scratch things that are confusing or useless out, while trying to add the fun factors to it. Certainly to be more creative, we have to ignore limitations and just go crazy with ideas. However, it won't bring much to the target achieved as most will be too far off to be useable. The idea to be more creative is quite limited to the knowledge of the person. Not everyone could think of a great creative idea. Thus, I believe that to be more creative upon creativity, we have to be more systematic. Being systematic not only sets order, it also brings the efficiency. Each person is to contribute and will be given a certain time limit. If nothing is thought, he or she is to skip a turn. After someone reaches a certain number of ideas, he or she can sit out. This way, we can be more creative with everyone having chance and also limit so there will be time to rest and refresh oneself with new ideas.

xx signed off at 11:42 PM

Space opera is usually similar to earth culture. Events that happen in space can be well related with things on earth. Protagonist, antagonist will always exist. Ideology, romance, argument, and many more happens at normal cause and result. In fact, being in space doesn't change anything besides the fact that it is science fiction, therefore, being a fantasy, anything is possible.
In space opera, though being similar to events on earth, it usually involves aliens. As the world is the stage for the opera, aliens is bound to appear. Here, there will be politics as well, alliance with another alien race, or governmental order from earth to do certain things. Government matter will definitely exist.
In space opera, the boundary between good and evil is great. It is clear that the good wants to protect everything he cares while evil is overwhelmed with ambitions and domination. Space opera, being science fiction, also involves fringe science. Unexplainable things happening with no definite reasonings. Most event occurs within a space ship, or space station as it clearly representing space travelling. It is the foundation of space opera. When you mention space travel, space ship is unavoidable subject.
Star Trek and Star Wars are great example of space opera. It also has clear representation of good and evil as I explained earlier.

xx signed off at 11:41 PM

Pervasive games are games without any specific platforms. They bring games to reality, to our everyday lifes. It also encourages social interactions, as most games interact with digital beings, also known as NPC, non-playable character. In pervasive games, we interact with people. We face real problems which cannot be reset and there is time limit as well to the gameplay hours.
Games like survivor is an example of pervasive game. It isn't exactly a survival game like what the title suggested. It is more of a teamwork situation where everyone must unite to overcome hurdles given by the producer. Losing team is to eliminate 1 member through voting. This eventually leads to many people attempting to create social network to ensure their safety from being eliminated in the game. Being too strong could get you eliminated as well in the fear of being defeated in the finals. Player has to be moderate, at the same time showing great teamwork.
Future gaming will be a further level of immersive gaming. The highest possibility of a future gaming is actually a virtual gaming. It brings the gamer to a virtual interactive world which is what immersive gameplay is all about. Casual gaming will become more and more portable, as well as accessible anywhere whenever you want. More and more games will be used by the media, for advertising, storytelling, and education. The future of gaming knows no bound, it will be bigger and greater than ever.

xx signed off at 11:26 PM

Games in movies are usually depressing. Especially when the game becomes real, there is no restart, no extra life, no super power or anything, everything is reality. Once you are dead, you are dead.
The movie gamer is a good example. Actually it is pretty sad for people to get killed for the entertainment of others, it is like we return to the past, where killing is entertainment in gladiator. From here we can also see another game within movies, Gladiator. Most of the games within movies are cruel, as they involve death on reality. Unlike normal games where the character experiencing it all have no mind of its own. The game in movies involves real human experiencing real game scenes, and humans have mind, they experience fear, pain and desperation, which eventually leads to the human primal instict of survival, which isn't very nice.
The movie Saw and Battle Royale shows such scene effectively. It shows how desperation could eventually lead to human doing unthinkable horror.

xx signed off at 11:26 PM

Wars and violence have always occur through certain reason. The reason isn't very simple, it is far more complex, especially knowing the consequences of war or violence. Before anything happens, something must have build up. A war or violence is like a volcanic eruption after it has reached the limit of pressure. In the past, holy war was caused by Christianity's origin and artifact, was at the hands of the Muslim. This led the Crusaders to launch an attack towards the Muslim. Their aim was Jerusalem, the holy city, origin of Christ. Jesus was born in Bethlehem, however it was written that Bethlehem is in the land of Jerusalem. This is not to confuse when I said origin of Christ being Jerusalem.
The freedom fighters or guerrilla fighters have their own reason that led them to this last resort. They are, what we call terrorist, nowadays. Their reason is usually revenge rather than victory. As people were in depression, usually done by foreign intervention, most cases were by US. They needed a common cause to unify the people. Thus led to acts of terrorism. Actually terrorism no longer involves fighting for freedom or anything, as it hardly damages US forces as to the extent of forcing them to retreat. In fact, most bombs that exploded in Afghanistan damages the locals more than the US forces, even though it was aimed towards them. As they used the time-based bomb, most of the time they missed the US army.
Regardless of what it is, most war or violence has deep reason. Noone will declare war that easily unless they're desperate for something. It can be land, wealth, religion, or resources. Some seek glory, however those were in the past. In modern times, with international law and order, war is no longer due to ambitions of world invasion, it is rather due to different ideology, such as democratics against communism.

xx signed off at 11:25 PM

War fictions are wars that occur within a fictional world, a fantasy. War fiction usually involves human race fighting against non-human invaders, a popular choice would be orc or undeads. The war is actually quite realistic, it involves marching, war drums, battle tactics, betrayal and intimidations. Everything is similar with real wars, however it has an element of magic and super powers such as titans and golems. Titans or golems could easily wipe a whole legion of forces charging at them.
Games like warcraft or warhammer 40k depicts such war perfectly. In warcraft, the war shows how various races have their own unique powers, unleashing them on a typical realistic warfare that involves swordsman, knights and archers. Meanwhile warhammer 40k shows a sci-fi war fictions with a very realistic battle situation that involves many factors such as morale, or crater providing cover, and inaccuracy against a moving target, pinned down, etc. All sorts of war situations can be found here.

xx signed off at 11:24 PM

Anime and manga shares a common bond, they are in fact, the same. The only difference between anime and manga is its interactiveness. Anime has sound, color and motion while manga are just pictures with words. However, the storyline in anime tends to be weaker as it is summarised to fit its extremely limited number of episodes and budget provided. Meanwhile manga has no limitation, it depends primarily on the mind of the "mangaka", a manga story writter or artist.
In fact, I personally has witnessed many anime that was created out of bestselling manga. These anime were lacking in the story, it is significantly shorter compared to the manga. A 60 chapter manga could be summarised into 12 to 24 episodes.
Kawaii or chibi culture is also popular in the anime or manga industry, in fact it is born from them. Kawaii or chibi are usually used to portray funny scenes, as these figures are shorter and more adorable. Scenes are funnier when kawaii or chibi character are used, instead of a full figure with its standard look. Afterall, anime or manga are still considered cartoon, it is a fictional story. Therefore, kawaii or chibi are widely used. However, considering the genre, kawaii or chibi are not used unless it involves either romance or comedy. A serious anime such as "Ghost in The Shell" or horror like "Ghost Hunt" do not use kawaii or chibi at all.

xx signed off at 11:23 PM

Conspiracy theory has always mention of Illuminati. Indeed it existed, however its existence ended mysteriously in the past. It is said that their society is so powerful that it controls over the world. World events happened due to their plans and doings.
A pope was even under them, Pope John Paul II was also called the black pope. He holds a bent cross used by satanist in the sixth century, why would a holy man hold such a sinister cross. There is also an infamous hand sign which many world leaders have used without a specific meaning on their actions. Even celebrities showed these hand symbol for no reason.
The all seeing eyes, an eye on top of a pyramid is seen everywhere. It is the symbol of illuminati. It is all over the media as well. It is even seen on the US one dollar note. Illuminati also known to be the cause of the 9/11 incident. President George Bush planned it with the leader of Al Queda, Osama Bin Laden. Many think that such alliance is impossible, however we can see that Osama's father is actually one of US best weapon supplier, which is also Bush's good friend. Many US president is actually members of illuminati. Those who are not and planned to go against them were assassinated. Such examples were Abraham Lincoln and John F.Kennedy.
Alternate world is a world beyond our realms, a world in another dimension, a parallel world. It is said that a world exactly same as ours existed. However, all that existed within that world is a complete opposite of ours. For example, if you are a male, in that alternate world, you would be a girl.
These alternate world or the secret world under our world created through conspiracies is a recipe for great game storyline. Alternate world is usually a fantasy type of genre, while conspiracy is usually an investigation or first person shooter game.

xx signed off at 11:23 PM

Fringe science is unlike pseudoscience. However, they are very familiar as both involves a form of sci-fi. Firstly, pseudoscience involves more of fantasy science, such as ancient lore of alchemy, astrology, homeopathic, and tarot reading. They are based on personal intuition and evaluation. In a sense, they are philosophy. Meanwhile, fringe science is based on unexplained phenomena that exist. However most of them are emphasized from the unknowns. I order to make this clearer, we will start with pseudoscience.
Pseudoscience is very unique, it is based on philosophy. There are no actual facts or proof. Pseudoscience is considered to be fantasy. However, there are science within it. Alchemy is a study of turning stone to gold, or creating elixir of immortality. This is closely related to chemistry and the science of modern medicine. Astrology is obviously related to astronomy.
Next is fringe science. Fringe science involves hypnotism, psychic phenomenon and dimensional travel. They are mostly an unexplained phenomenon with no clear scientific explanation. Hypnotism involves implanting belief into a persons mind. It is some sort of temporary brainwashing and altering a person's belief. Psychic phenomenon is also an unexplained phenomenon. A psychic phenomenon can either be triggered by strong emotion or thoughts, or sheer mind power, aware or unaware. It can be in the form of pyrokinesis by vibrating molecules to produce heat, or poltergeist by moving object with mind.

xx signed off at 11:21 PM

Number is a representation of things. Measurement, mathematics are formed due to the existence of numbers. These plays an important role in human society as they form the foundation of science and development of humanity. Numbers also represent certain role, such as number 0 represents void, fairness, emptyness. Meanwhile number 1 represents unity and a new beginning. This also shows that numbers are actually symbology and it is closely related with Tarot cards.
Both number and tarot shares a common symbolic meanings. In tarot, death is presented as skeleton with scythe. Number also shares its capability of telling a specific meaning, such as 2 being balance, is shown by two foundation on left and right, bringing balance which 1 couldnt achieve. Three brings stability by adding one more foundation inbetween the two, solidifying the foundation.
The representation of both tarot or numbers have a clear personality of their own. Combined could form a story. This is why tarot has been used in divination or occult, by using them to tell a story of the future a person is about to experience. Such game that uses these tarot symbolism is Persona 3 or 4. The main character is the fool arcana, the 1st in the tarot card. The main character is to interact with other characters, each with a unique personality bounded with their arcana, such as Justice arcana having strong feeling of justice.

xx signed off at 11:08 PM

Sword and sorcery is the basis of fantasy world, a world filled with magic. In these world, sword were no longer the only tools of war. Anything can be a weapon, as long as it is imbued with magic or runes. It involves powerful artifacts or hero that defies law of physics. The law of physics no longer apply as a hero could do almost all sorts of unexplainable things, such as levitation, or a huge massive sword conjured that could wipe an entire fleet.
This is indeed a very popular theme with superheroes to be seen. Sword represents weaponry and in such world, weapon differs greatly, in fact even a yo-yo could be a weapon. Sorcery represents magic, magic is often related to unique powers of either destruction or recovery. It requires chanting, or some with incredible concentration could cast it almost instantly as they have already chanted it inside their mind.
Sword also represents a warrior, those who go in the frontline, taking all the attacks and countering them. While sorcery represents a mage, an artillery that requires safety from all harm in order to complete their casting and unleash massive energy. However, you can blend these two together, creating a magic warrior. Magical warriors are basically a jack of all trades, however by harnessing magic in their fighting, it could bring huge advantage to the user.
Sword and sorcery without doubt, is the basis of al fantasy adventure games. A fantasy adventure game without one would be utherly boring, which is reality.

xx signed off at 11:08 PM

Throughout the years, human has been developing computers as close as possible to human mind. Able to make decision of its own, able to learn, and understand. This is called AI, or artficial intelligence. The idea is to create a mind which an intelectual level similar to that of ours, human's mind.
An AI is extremely complex, it is divided into subfields that often fails to connect with each other. Clashes between knowledge, curiosity, functions and preference is extremely complicated. Programming them is even more difficult. Human programs nowdays is closing in to a perfect AI, however it is always lacking of something, such as emotions.
Robots nowadays are merely machines with extra programs and commands, allowing it to work a specific labour without anyone controlling it. However, a robot is still guided by many things such as sensors and coordinates. A true robot with a mind similar to that of a human does not exist yet.
There has been many complains to the research of robots and AI. This is due to the fear of unknown side effects that will be caused by robots with a mind of their own. This also means that new law have to be written for robots. By having a mind of their own, these robots could create a plot and eventually overthrow the human race. Matrix protrays how fearsome AI could be.
AI will deliver a whole new element to gaming. It includes many different path a society may take, depending on the side effects of robots or computers with AI.

xx signed off at 11:07 PM

Time travel is certainly one of the core of science fiction. It is said that time travel can be achieved through three methods. By travelling faster than the speed of light, black holes and wormholes. The first method, travelling faster than light, is actually impossible if we follow the law of physics. No object can travel at the speed of light besides light itself. However it might be possible to travel close to the speed of light. As an object approaches the speed of light, time slows down. Thus those who travel close to the speed of light might experience few minutes, however those within the normal time flow sees it as hours, or even days.
The second method is actually close to impossible as well. Blackholes are remnants of mega stars that ran out of fuel, ending up being crushed by its own massive gravity. It is said that mass affects the flow of time. The bigger the mass, the slower time flows around it. Blackhole, being the object with the greatest mass in the universe has the power to slow down time considerably. In fact, it is said that time is halfed within the event horizon, the area where escape is no longer possible due to the gravity pull. The idea is to use a spaceship to orbit around the black hole, right at the boundary of the event horizon. However, this could only be achieved way far in the future.
Last method, the wormhole. Wormhole is by far, the most possible method available for human to travel through time. This idea is by travelling through a shortcut between 2 dimension. Time flows differently within wormhole and outside.
Time travel is certainly a dream all physicist wanted to achieve. However, the possibility is very small due to the boundaries of law of physics. Black hole is the only object that ignores law of physics. However, the concept of time travel opens up to many possibility for a game to develop, both sci-fi and fantasy altogether.

xx signed off at 11:06 PM

Aliens are also known as extraterrestrial life. Their existence is questionable. However I strongly believe of their existence in such a huge universe out there. There are many other planetary systems similar to that of our solar system without doubt. As long as there is a habitable condition or environment on that planet, it could support life and without doubt will lead to the birth of aliens. Planet "Gliese 581 c" is considered a habitable planet due to its existence of water and having enough exposure to sunlight, around 30% of that of Earth, and large amount of greenhouse gases that warms up the planet to a point that will ensure the existence of liquid water.
This proofs that life similar to earth, or even more advance is possible on other planets. There could be a more powerful race on another planet, where they have achieved space age. Such alien race will begin exploring habitable planets out of curiosity, just like what we have been attempting to do. This will probably explains the reason behind alien sightings or alien's abduction.
When an alien race is dying or faces crisis due to their lack of resources or calamity ahead of them like 2012, and could not find any other solution besides travelling to their closest habitable neighbour, like earth. Alien invasion may occur. Even if it is merely to migrate from disaster, they might still invade earth. This is due to the human population, combined with alien population, will definitely break down earth due to over population. Also earth have not entered its prime in space travelling or anything, while aliens have already entered their golden age of space technology, this will make them capable of overwhelming our military easily. Why will they share earth when they can easily take it away from us. This basically led to an alien invasion. Such example of a game is Star Ocean series. It portrays armageddon, and alien invasion.

xx signed off at 11:06 PM

Ghosts, zombies and vampires are considered classic horrors. Ghosts are especially most feared due to their existence in reality. We have always questioned ourselves, "Do ghost exist?"
Most people nowadays believed as ghost or spiritual beings have been explained in various religion as being restless or earthbound, its existence have been proven scientifically as well. The group Ghost Lab shown in Discovery Channel encounters various ghost directly. The experience many supernatural happenings that cannot be explained by logic. When there is a being that we have no knowledge about, yet existed near us, this inflict fear or horror at us.
Zombies are common in nowadays shooting game. They are portrayed as weak and fragile, however are massive in numbers and capable of infecting others, creating more and more zombies. A beginning of zombie outbreak is certainly fearsome, especially us normal civilians as zombies in movies or games are usually normal civilians. Left for Dead or Resident Evil movie portrayed this scene very well it leave a long lasting fear on us. However due to its fragile body being a corpse, such as in Left for Dead or House of the Dead, many people no longer fears zombie as media portrays zombie as weak undeads. However, an anime managed to capture the fearsome impact of zombie outbreak, such anime is Highschool of The Dead. In this anime, you can see the true terror of zombie outbreak, leaving a long-lasting mark on us.
Vampires, unlike others, used to be a horrifying existence. Such vicious bloodsucker enters a maidens room and disappears with her. It used to be a fearsome existence in the past. However, nowadays, vampires have become an icon for admiration. Such as twilight or mangas like Vampire Knight, vampires are graceful and elegant, a noble of beauty and perfection. It is beginning to lose its horror or terror on society nowadays. In fact many wanted to become one, as they wanted beauty and strength.

xx signed off at 11:05 PM

The current state of horror is different than the classic horror. It affects a person psychologically and mentally due to its realism. It can happen to anyone, anywhere, during the time you least expected it. Such as terrorism, it happens without our knowledge and it could affect in a lost of family members or even yourselves. The closer it is to our everyday life, the bigger the impact. 9/11 for example caused the world to drop their jaw in horror. Everyone can only ask, "Is this happening? Is this a movie?"
It is hard to believe, the shock, the despair. It is overwhelming. When the World Trade Center is burning, people who are desperate jumped of the building. It produces many crackling or crunching sounds of bodies being smashed on the concrete floor. Some firemen on the scene could not even handle the horror and either puked or left the scene immediately. This shows how much impact a current state of horror could do to a person state of mind. In fact, the impact is harsher than the classic horror.
This current state of horror is a popular choice for horror game nowadays. Such as game on murderer chasing you or terrorist attack. Such example is Clock Tower series horror game where the main character is being chased by the murderer who massacred many people, helpless. It is a terrifying game as based on reality, we do not have much weapon against a cold-blooded veteran murderer. Our brain commands us to run and hide, and when we get spotted, we fell on hysterical outburst.

xx signed off at 10:37 PM

Fantasy is a huge topic. I believe it is a topic that knows no bound. Fantasy is extremely vast and in the world of fantasy, there is absolutely no limitation, unlike science fiction bounded by reality. Fantasy is also tightly related with magic. Most world of fantasy will have system of magic through many different ways such as "Mana", "Soul" or "Qi". Magic is such a strong catalyst to fantasy due to its presence in the past. Many tales in the past involves magics, which is supposedly a mere nature disaster, however people in the past believed it was the work of magic. However, whether it actually exist or not is still debateable. More importantly, its possibility of existence cause magic which does not exist, feels more real.
Fantasy utilizes magic really well. With a long history behind magic, although it is still unknown of what power magic in the past has, it does not stop people to imagine and dream of it. This led to magic capable of doing things impossible in reality, and it being easily understood, even if it doesn't make sense. There is a rule where too much fantasy will make it too difficult to understand as there is little relation with what we humans experience. However, too little fantasy will make it too much like science fiction with overflowing information of reality. Thus, a good fantasy has a good balance between fantasy and reality. It must have enough fantasy to be out of reality and yet easily understandable.
Anything that is not reality is fantasy. A good example of fantasy is through blending beings of reality, such as half fish half human, mermaids, or half tree half human, dryads.

xx signed off at 10:31 AM

Horror is a unique experience to me. I hate ghost, demon or darkness, yet I still watch them. Therefore it was quite unique to me, especially when my curiousity constantly pulls me back to the world of horror, even if I fear them. Indeed,
the aim of horror was to inflict fear, however we seems to enjoy the fear as a thrill, an excitement. We can call these
as masochist. In my case though, it is less likely to be the thrill that captivates me, rather it is the curiousity. I
want to know what kind of fear I will experience and how does the *horror* looks like. It seems pretty weird when it causes me to have nightmares, and yet I still watch them.
I am aware of the different level of horror and only horror of certain level will inflict much impact on me, thus sometimes I have the courage to watch horror show, hoping that the fear level isn't high enough to cause me with nightmares which I detest. However, mood does affect our fear tolerance. When I am not feeling too well, or I am feeling quite cloudy, my state of mind is pretty unstable and thus, reducing my fear tolerance. This led to even the simplest form of horror to haunt me through the night. Thus the factor of fear in horror depends on each individual level of tolerance, as well as their mood and also, the horror's level of fear.
Gore is also a form of horror, however it is a horror based on disgust and fear of the gore scene happening to yourselves. Seeing gore scene can be disturbing and hurt one's mind, however it also pumps the adrenaline within us. The excitement gained from seeing things we do not see or rather things we might never see in real life, is comparable to having an intense horror show. Thus gore and horror are somewhat similar, especially based on their impact on a person's mentality, and also giving out excitement through fear, hatred and disgust.

xx signed off at 10:31 AM

Transrealism is unique in a sense it brings ones mind away from reality. As you can see from the word transrealism of "trans" meaning to transfer and "realism" meaning of realms. Thus transrealism means transfering one to another realm. This idea of transrealism comes with slipstream. Slipstream is a clash of two contradictory idea to form a new surreal stuff. It rejects the idea of realism.
Transrealism and slipstream brings one away from reality. As I found out on the previous topic of fantasy, too much reality will make the story seems dull or boring, while too much fantasy will make the story weird and does not make sense at all. This idea of not making sense is clearly surrealism. Like Alice in Wonderland is a good example of surrealism, it has giant mushrooms or soldier of cards. World of surrealism is usually hard to understand, and the surrealism produced differs by each individual. How we see surrealism also differs from one another, some might understand, yet some might find it disturbing to look at.
Slipstream rejects reality, in fact it twist reality. By combining two information or objects of reality together, it create a whole new unknown entity, just like surrealism. The world forged by slipstream is unreal, however this is the reason why some writer uses this method. As science fiction is too much real, or rather contains too much reality, some writer uses transrealism to bring the story further from reality, causing the story to be more unique.
Magic is a strong substance in slipstream. It bends the law of cosmos and causes many effects that are unknown or rather logically impossible to explain or reason. In fact, magic does not requires logical explanation for it twist the order. Thus, in order to bring a person further from reality, magic does the job well. Magic is purely a form of fantasy, and not a pinch of reality at all. The reality within magic is probably the item or element it harness, for imagination is limited to human intellect. No matter how fantasy it is, it always uses object of reality that are twisted.

xx signed off at 10:30 AM

Mythical heroes are unlike everyday hero which requires mere bravery or something slightly extraordinary. A mythical hero requires a greater feat beyond extraordinary, they require power to achieve their heroic feats, such as Hercules requiring massive strength to defeat Hydra, or Perseus with his demigod talent, killing medusa.
For these heroes to be mythical heroes, they have to be related to the respective mythical gods, like how Hercules being demi-god, having Zeus as his father. The world they live in also requires mythical beast which only a true hero could slay. However, when two great power clashes, it also creates myth. Such examples can be seen through the epic fight between Achilles and Hector in the Trojan War. However, Ajax, Oddyseus, and Phoenix who also went within the same war did not gain the same fame as Achilles, this is clearly shows how an epic clash could led a hero to be a mythical hero.
These are myths circling around the mythical heroes in the past. However, due to the past mindset of female being inferior to male, except for egypt, there isn't a single mythical heroine in greek history. Heroine only appears after 1990s, which however, still portrayed as evil in most of the case. The only strong support towards female heroine is actually Japan "manga and anime" which has a huge percentage of around 50% to 60% having heroines instead of heroes.
Hero can be constructed, or rather grouped to different archetype. In most cases, especially the past, main hero is always a warrior, a person of the light, doing justice, banishing evil. This archetype groupings expanded the range of main character/hero attitude. Now, heroes vary their archetypes, being either a wanderer who prefers travelling alone, or being extremely naive as an innocent, or an orphan who is realistic and usually selfish, or a magician who is innovative and charismatic, however weird or unique.
Even mindsets of hero varies widely, the reason behind their persistence and keep moving forward, is no longer solely based on the light. There are heroes driven by hatred and revenge, or heroes who has ulterior motive all along. Some heroes even go against God and the world in order to achieve their dream, even when they know that what they are doing has much lower chance of success than mere sacrifice.

xx signed off at 10:30 AM

Science fiction is closely related to fantasy, for it contains mainly of things that are not real. However science fiction is closer to reality than fantasy, as science fiction is based on technological advancement, the future. It is more believeable than fantasy as some did come true. Some of the science fiction in the past has become true now, the people in the past who wrote science fiction envisions many things that became real. These things include bio-engineering, cloning, helicopter, skyscraper, and many more.
Science fiction never fail to amaze the audience. Its creativity is something else. Nowadays, many links science fiction to alien invasion and thus human have to fight back to keep Earth as their own. This pattern is common and very popular. Many shooting games or RTS are built upon this category of science fiction, where human is at war with the aliens.
I believe that although science fiction is vast, it is limited to the limits of reality. Such obvious examples are guns. No matter how far in future gun is, it always comes wif the shaft and trigger, regardless whether it fires bullet, laser or plasma.
Therefore, science fiction nowadays usually includes a pinch of fantasy to make things that is impossible to explain through science, possible. This is called science fantasy. In fact, I believe blending world of magic with science fiction is a great way if science fiction are to reach a new height, a new vast field for it to expand. This could easily improve as science fiction has always revolve around semi fantasy, unreal reality. An easy example of science fantasy is actually laser sound in space. In Star Wars, the fight in space has many different noises and explosions, however sound cannot travel in space as there is no air. So technically, if this is a pure science fiction, space war shouldn't create any sound at all.

xx signed off at 10:29 AM