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monstersdownthepath · 3 years

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Demigod Dossier: Velstrac Demagogues, part 1

Pictured: Aroggus, the Abbey-Maker

Lawful Evil Mad Artists of the Shadow Plane

The Complete Book of the Damned, pg. 120~121 Additional information is also present in Adventure Path: Return of the Runelords: The City Outside of Time, pg. 74~79

Our second-ever Demigod Dossier, now fully in-swing! The Velstrac Demagogues are the rulers of the Shadow Plane and all the lives within, though many of said lives within aren’t really fans of them. Natives to the Netherworld find the presence of the Velstrac an annoyance at best and a threat to their lives at worst, and would much prefer if they went back to Hell where they came from, but unfortunately for everyone everywhere they don’t appear too eager to throw themselves into the jaws of the inferno just yet. Instead, they’re busy throwing themselves into the jaws of one another.

The Demagogues represent the pinnacle of a specific subset of the Velstrac’s twisted senses of ‘art’ and ‘perfection,’ either because they’ve mutilated themselves into something wholly unlike anything else that can, did, or could exist, or they’ve pioneered a form of artistry that other Velstrac couldn’t even conceptualize in the first place and gathered a fandom. It takes some very twisted, alien forms of thinking to become a Demagogue and get others rallied behind you, even moreso because the Velstrac themselves are, putting it kindly, completely out of their gourd. When your audience already expects the insane and outlandish, you have to go even further, and many of the fiends you’ll soon see have.

We’ll only be covering four in this initial post, with the rest to be saved for later...

Demagogues view mortals as little more than primal clay to be shaped, and thus see little worth in investing true divine power into them, worshipers receive Boons that are are relatively simple: a trio of spell-like abilities, each of which may be used 1/day. Boons are normally gained slowly, at levels 12, 16, and 20, however entering the Evangelist, Exalted, or Sentinel Prestige Classes can see the Boons gained as early as levels 10, 13, and 16. Note that while they are Lawful Evil fiends originally from Hell, they are not devils, thus you cannot enter the Diabolist Prestige Class to obtain their Boons without DM fiat.

Aroggus, the Abbey-Maker

Demagogue of Possibility, Revenge, and Sanctuary Domains: Evil, Law, Protection, Trickery Subdomains: Deception, Defense, Fear, Tyranny

Obedience: List the names of those who have wronged you until the writing covers a page, then consume the parchment. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws to resist compulsion effects.

What a completely normal, sane, and healthy thing to do! As the first of the Demagogues to flee from Hell, Aroggus is EXTREMELY angry at the devils for locking them up in the first place. Angry enough to want revenge on the whole of the diabolic race, as well as the Asura... Angry enough that he hasn’t yet even started getting around to enacting his revenge, instead just constantly thinking about and refining it as if no iteration of suffering is perfect enough to match his fury.

True to form, he wants you to ruminate in your anger rather than doing anything to enact your vengeance, blacking out a page with the names (or just one name) of all who’ve wronged you no matter how petty or insignificant the inconvenience they may have caused. Unfortunately, no two ways about it, you’re going to look insane (in the literal definition of the term) doing this every day, especially if you only have one or two people who’ve wronged you enough to get onto your list. Scrawling their name, front AND back, until the page is filled and then eating it is behavior that will raise eyebrows no matter who you’re adventuring with. Best to keep this one behind closed doors. Make sure you have a glass of activated charcoal after, because all of that ink day after day (unless you write with, I don’t know, berry juice or blood) is going to do amazingly terrible things to your constitution.

The benefit is good. Compulsions are typically Save-Or-Suck effects, so having more Save means less Suck for you later on. It’s useful at any point in your adventure, so I can’t say anything bad about it! My only wish is that it was a little stronger, since some other gods give +4 vs compulsion and charm effects.

Boon 1: Nondetection Boon 2: Forcecage Boon 3: Imprisonment

Nondectection is a good spell for those times when you need to sneak by diviners, hide magic items from scrutiny, avoid the gaze of a Paladin who’s a little too judicious with Detect Evil, or to add another layer of shroud over Invisibility and the like. It’s a spell that’s a pain to prepare every single day, but useful to have when you need it... but you only have one casting of it per day, so using it wisely is paramount. Ironically, it combines well with your own Divination to find out if you’ll even need it later. More often than not you won’t be using it at all except to idly ward yourself when going into town or diving into a dungeon.

Forcecage is a completely different animal, the offensive and defensive applications of the spell simply mind-blowing, to the point that keeping this to just one paragraph to save space is going to take some herculean effort on my part! So, the basics: Forcecage has two versions, both of which halt all movement through them: A 20ft square of force bars that allow spells, projectiles, and line-of-effect through, and a 10ft cube that blocks line-of-effect and all forms of magic and supernatural abilities. A Forcecage is effectively invincible (having Hardness 30 and 20hp/level) and impossible to move, so anyone trapped inside without the ability to teleport is likely to stay there for the spell’s duration. Also, to put it simply, shoving enemies in the cage is the main point, but if you cannot, a 10ft/20ft square is an enormous roadblock to stop up narrow passages with.

Which leaves Imprisonment, a portable hole you can shove all sorts of problems into, which will likely create new problems down the line if the target had anything you needed on them. I recommend knocking out a foe, stripping them of their valuables, and then shoving them into their baby jail for all eternity! With the Freedom spell being the only means to undo Imprisonment (even Wish and Miracle fail), you’ll have no actual way to undo the spell against any target you cast it on for one or two more levels, if at all (depending on the party composition). Make sure to use it only when the villain has no MacGuffins, or is a powerful recurring threat. Imprisonment works on anything and everything capable of failing the Will save (take note, anyone wanting to fight Kaiju, Great Old Ones, or Spawn of Rovagug), which gets a -4 penalty if you know the target’s name and some facts about its life, so famous villains are even more vulnerable to being thrown into the Eternity Marble!

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Barravoclair, Lady of the Final Gasp

Demagogue of the Elderly, Fatalistic Insights, Resurrection Domains: Death, Evil, Healing, Law Subdomains: Murder, Restoration, Resurrection, Undead

Obedience: Practice breath control, holding your breath until you nearly pass out. Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on checks to resist drowning and on saves against inhaled poisons.

A hell of a step down in terms of unhealthiness in terms of Aroggus, and significantly less suspicious, too. Breath control is practiced by people of all stripes, from athletes to explorers to simple monks attempting more profound meditation. While ‘nearly passing out’ is skirting an edge most people won’t approach, it’s not exactly as dangerous for you as, say, inhaling water or eating poison every day. Without any materials needed, the Lady of the Final Gasp is one of the simplest and probably the single cheapest Obedience ritual one could ask for! There is a minor caveat in that races who can’t breathe can’t technically do this Obedience at all, but those aren’t the audience Barravoclair wants anyway.

Unfortunately, the benefit is as weak as the Obedience is easy to do. Drowning is unlikely to come up as a danger unless you’re physically dragged into the water by a monster (which means holding your breath likely isn’t an option anyway), and inhaled poisons are the least common poison type in the game. Against the odd Catoblepas or Green Dragon it will come in handy, but it’s protection from injury poison you really need, which the Lady of the Final Gasp doesn’t provide.

Boon 1: Speak With Dead Boon 2: Resurrection Boon 3: Soul Bind

Alright, let’s face it. Some days, you need Speak With Dead to keep the plot running smoothly. Whether your overzealous DPS kills everyone in the room, your Fireball-lobbing Sorcerer kills everyone in the room, or your summoner’s unchained beasts kill everyone in the room, chances are at some point in your career you’re going to save the party a lot of headaches by being able to pull answers from a corpse. Having Speak With Dead available every day will likely not matter 80% of the time (meaning you can typically use it at your leisure just before going to bed), but much like with Water Breathing and spells like Remove Curse and Neutralize Poison, having it for those 20% of times you need it can keep the wheels spinning and stop unneeded side quests.

... And speaking of side quests and things you’ll need once in a blue moon, Resurrection? For free? Even 1/day? With the hefty cost of 10,000gp for the normal spell, even a well-off party will feel the impact every single time they have to use Rez, but the removal of the cost ups the power level of the spell by a margin so enormous that it doesn’t really matter what Boon you get before or after this one; THIS boon rewards worship of Barravoclair enough to justify putting up with her empty benefit. Even without factoring in the ability to raise party members, you can now curry favor with people of all stripes and demand all forms of insane payments for your ability to raise centuries-old dead at no cost but time... or do your work for free and call in favors at a later date. Do note, however, that you’ll also need someone else on standby to remove the negative levels/stat drain caused by the resurrection process.

I said it didn’t matter what the third Boon was and I stand by it. Unlike with the free Rez above, Soul Bind’s enormous cost still makes its use as anything but a once-per-campaign finisher of an annoying enemy irritating and unfeasible. Spell-likes normally require no components, but Soul Bind operates in a gray area of the rules in that its focus component becomes the subject for the spell, meaning that a DM can very easily and very rightly say you DO require the gemstone whose value must equal or exceed the target’s HD x 1,000. Binding even a simple 5 CR creature requires the tall order of a 5,000gp gemstone, and if you want to use it on a target that’s worthwhile, it gets expensive fast. It’s way cheaper and easier to just hire a Cacodaemon.

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Fharaas, the Seer in Skin

Demagogue of Experience, Murder, and Patterns Domains: Evil, Knowledge, Law, Repose Subdomains: Ancestors, Fear, Memory, Souls

Obedience: Study the interior of a freshly severed limb. Benefit: You are immune to bleed effects that deal 6 damage or less.

This Obedience is deceptively simple for what its implication is. You’d best get yourself a Sack Of Rats or have access to a lot of disposable prisoners (or the Regenerate spell)! But thankfully, there’s some wiggle room in the wording: ‘freshly severed’ means no cheating and using Gentle Repose on the same arm over and over, but it ALSO means you can carry around a single corpse and slowly slice it apart, as the limbs themselves don’t have to be fresh, just freshly cut off for the purpose of the ritual. Also, you can use the bodies of Undead, Constructs, and any other creature that technically has severable limbs! Though Fharaas, the Seer In Skin, will likely punish you if your ritual doesn’t involve the examination of actual flesh.

You’re going to look really weird, is what I’m saying. At least if someone barges in on you, you can claim you’re inspecting them for something or other. Infection, signs of magic, etc, whatever you can come up with to blunt the blow. You can cover yourself moderately well by being a butcher or a hunter in your day job, as the severed limb doesn’t have to be human, or even sapient (hence why I suggest a Sack Of Rats), letting you freely slice up and examine your kills.

Bleed effects are fairly uncommon in the grand scheme of things but are also a pain in the neck to deal with in the middle of battle, so this giving a +4 bonus aga--wait, sorry, hold on no, this isn’t a bonus to saving throws? Or skill checks to heal bleed? It just... Stops them if they deal 6 or less damage? You don’t even have to make a save?

Okay. Okay, alright. So you’re just immune to bleed, then?

More or less, really. There are very few monsters that deal more than d6 bleed damage with their attacks (be warned that higher-level ones can sometimes stack their bleed!), and this ability also works on the rare but dreaded stat bleed, and off the top of my head there are NO monsters that deal more than a d4 dice in stat bleed damage. My main problem is that it doesn’t reduce the bleed damage you take by 6, so taking even 1 more point of bleed damage makes this ability useless. Still, though it’s fairly narrow, being effectively immune to a dangerous and irritating status ailment at level 3 or so (when bleed is at its most threatening) is well worth taking up butchery.

Boon 1: Keen Edge Boon 2: Vision Boon 3: Foresight

Keen Edge is a spell you absolutely want to slap onto any vaguely pirate-y or hoity-toity party member you may have, as cutlasses, rapiers, and scimitars all leap from a dangerous 18~20 critical range to a terrifying 15~20, meaning they threaten to critically strike 1 out of every 4 attacks instead of just once every other fight or so. With a duration of 10 min/level, the enchantment will likely last multiple fights even if you only have it 1/day, but unfortunately it refuses to stack with any crit-boosting enchantments or feats the wielder may already possess, lessening its usefulness as your adventure goes on and your martial party members pick up increasingly fancy gear and pad out their collection of feats. Still, it’s useful for when you get it, and will remain useful for several levels after.

Vision is a whole different beast, and a dangerous one at that. It operates as the Legend Lore spell but vastly accelerated, allowing you to scrape the public consciousness for any information it may have on a specific person, place, or thing. I’ve complained about the general niche uses of Legend Lore before, but Vision grants the information in a much shorter time (a single standard action) at the cost of a potential for failure and a slap of fatigue whether you succeed or not. I don’t like 1/days that do nothing on a failure, but since Vision is purely a downtime spell (unless you need to know the boss’ weakness or info on the Evil Doom Artifact right now immediately), it’s not as much of an impediment to lose out on whatever information it could give you. That being said, the DM will likely have ways for you to do whatever plot-relevant research you need anyway, so Vision is more of a way to speed up the process than anything.

Which leaves Foresight, a spell whose main benefit relies intensely on DM cooperation, as I’ve ranted about here. Mechanically it’s fairly unimpressive, but if the DM reads the spell carefully, they should realize it gives whoever you cast it on a 6-second glance into the future at all times. Whatever horrors befall the victim 6 seconds from now should spring into your mind before they happen, making you the best trap radar on the planet, and the spell’s warnings for the best ways to protect yourself will urge the DM to grant you information about the enemy’s capabilities you may never otherwise know... but what do you expect from 9th level magic? It SHOULD be filling you in with details you’d never figure out!

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Inkariax, the White Death

Demagogue of Preservation, Absolute Cold, and Solitude Domains: Evil, Law, Void, Water Subdomains: Fear, Ice, Isolation, Slavery

Obedience: Inventory your collection of hoarded knickknacks, reciting your unique name for each item as you do Benefit: Gain a +4 profane bonus on saving throws to resist effects that would petrify or paralyze you.

God, finally, someone normal. At worst you’ll look like someone with a few obsessive issues, but at least you won’t look like a menace to society as you lay out your, I dunno, marbles or bone dice or dolls or what have you and make note that they’re still there, cooing to them with names only you know. It’s fitting for Inkariax, of all the Demagogues, to have an Obedience that requires no self-harm, physically or psychologically; unlike all the rest, he was born perfect and doesn’t need to chase after it. Instead, he pursues finding perfection in others, freezing and collecting people and items he believes represent perfection in whatever unusual way he desires that day (having perfect posture, or a perfect scream, or a perfect pair of eyes, etc). Much like him, you’re encouraged to expand a collection of whatever you deem perfect and desirable, which you’re often going to do just over the course of normally adventuring. I’ve yet to see a player character that doesn’t start amassing all sorts of junk in their pockets the moment they get a Bag of Holding or similar.

Indeed, you can just pick up whatever catches your fancy, be it stones, sticks, or severed bits of an enemy, though I’m sure Inkariax will ever-so-slowly raise a disapproving eyebrow if you just pick up any old junk. Make sure to curate your collection now and then! Being able to perform this Obedience with anything you happen to gather is especially helpful if you’re ever separated from your collection (always a danger) and need to start again, but note that each item you gain in your collection must have a completely unique name. That’s only really a danger for especially RP-heavy campaigns, but in such campaigns Worship of the White Death isn’t for everyone who just names all their collected bird feathers Jeffery. Start getting in the habit of stretching out your inventory sheet with names for all your items!

The benefit you get from lovingly counting up all your stolen statuettes and dusty books is resistance to two of the worst status effects in the game. While petrification is relatively rare it typically appears in Save-Or-Suck form, which makes protection against it far more valuable than, say, protection against something like the far more common fatigue or exhaustion. Paralysis is an ailment just short of a death sentence by itself, costing the victim their turn at best and their life at worst, so even a +4 between you and that is something you need to cling to with your entire being.

Boon 1: Sleet Storm Boon 2: Sequester Boon 3: Microcosm

Sleet Storm is a very simple spell with a decent number of functions. Its Long range means that any enemy in your line of sight can potentially be a target, letting you lash out easily at ranged enemies or dangerous casters by creating a 40ft-wide and 20ft-tall area of concealing sleet that’s impossible for any vision to pierce (except the rare and niche Snowsight or Fogcutter Lenses). Anyone inside will have to rely on Tremorsense or Blindsense (though the jury’s out on if the splashing of the sleet would confound those, as well) to navigate it, and 40ft of difficult terrain can feel impossible to clamber through when you start right in the middle of it with no idea which way is the way you need to go. It’s one of the strongest vision-blockers in the game due to its immunity to common tactics that thwart lesser spells (Gust of Wind, True Seeing, etc), forcing enemies to either blow their valuable uses of Dispel Magic or suffer for its entire duration. My only complaint is that you only get it 1/day and that it screws over your party just as hard if you use it incorrectly.

Sequester is as niche a use spell as there ever was for players, requiring a bit of forethought about what or who you’d want to hide with it. The target must be willing or inanimate to be affected, so tricking an enemy via Charm or Dominate into accepting the spell can keep them fresh as a daisy for weeks at a time if you ever have a reason to do such a thing. More often than not you’ll use it to conceal items you seriously don’t want seen or detected, such as a Bag of Holding or similar loaded with your collection of knickknacks or emergency supplies, a particular hostage, an NPC you need to keep alive, or your phylactery if you’re a Lich. If you’re especially sadistic, using it on an item someone else needs and throwing it into a well or a hoard of other objects will keep them occupied for a while. If you’re a more martial character, using it to hide your armor is viable, making it seem as though you’re invincible when enemy blows bounce straight off, or even your weapon to confound your enemies who seem to be taking wounds from an unseen item. Your mime routine will be killer, literally! Just... Just don’t drop the thing, because in the heat of battle you’re never going to find it.

Microcosm is one of the best spells you can hurl into a crowd of commoners or a swarm of foes meant to gum you up instead of actually threaten you. Its 30 HD limit will mean it likely will only strike one or two creatures capable of actually threatening you, but it’s brutal even then. The spell is permanent, trapping your victims in an illusory world in which everything goes right for them even as their bodies starve to death in the waking world. Anything with less than 10 HD is automatically affected with no saving throw, the spell easily mopping up mobs, while anything with 11~15 HD escapes automatically after 10 min... per level you have. On a successful save. There’s Save-Or-Suck, and then there’s the immensely rare Save-And-Suck! No wonder Microcosm is ONLY on the Psychic’s list! Anything with more than 16 HD is unaffected if they succeed their save, but all their allies are likely in an everlasting dreamland now. The big issue is that the HD restriction is way tighter than you may think; creatures, especially at higher levels, usually do NOT have HD matching their CR, but if you’re mainly battling level-appropriate Humanoid or Monstrous Humanoid creatures, Microcosm is fairly reliable in such battles, as those foes typically have HD that roughly matches their CR. But if you’re up against, say, Dragons or Outsiders, good luck bud.

Side note: Microcosm and Sequester used in combination make for excellent ways to start your own morbid collection of living creatures, just like your icy master! Just make sure you have some non-Divination means of seeing them, as Sequester blocks even True Sight.

#Pathfinder #dungeons and dragons #Demigod Dossier #Spiritual Spotlight #Sinister Spotlight

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morshtalon · 4 years

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Dragon Quest II

Well, it's been a while since I wrote a review on something. I've played a number of games in the meantime, but none of them really gave me anything I felt was worth talking about or that hasn't been talked about before, so I just keep them in the backburner of my mind for possible future reference.

However, I feel like current circumstances make for a good time to dig up one of the games I wanted to share my thoughts on for a long time, and that I had beaten before even writing the first review I've ever "published". That game is Dragon Quest II.

Part of the reason why I held off on it for so long is that I don't think my review of the first game is all that great, and another part is that, again, I don't feel like I've bunched up enough good stuff to say, even though I really wanted to talk about it ever since I played it.

But hey, by far and wide my post popular post is technically related to Dragon Quest II, so why not cut to the chase and do it, right?

Anyway, to say that the first game took off in popularity is an understatement, it being the seminal harbinger of an entire genre of gaming that would soon take the world by storm. You would think that means this would be the time-old tale of "runaway success game making company executives pressure developers into slaving away at a sequel with suffocating deadlines". However, planning for DQII apparently began before DQI was released. 1986 was a different time, I guess. A time when the industry was fledgling enough that it wasn't that much more than a group of dudes banding together to bring an idea to life, and then - not a moment of hesitation after that idea comes to fruition - immediately start brainstorming ways in which they can build on it to give birth to new, more complex explorations of the concepts they had just tackled.

I believe this is why it's good to go back and play these games in their original versions, in chronological release order. Nowadays, it's virtually impossible to innovate. Back then, almost every big-time franchise was always finding ways to breathe fresh air into the structure of their games. Though Dragon Quest isn't the most innovative when compared to the likes of Final Fantasy, they were still making great strides into the codification of the type of game they had pioneered. With that knowledge in mind, one can really appreciate the evolution by going back and exploring these things as they grew with the times. And hey, Final Fantasy still wasn't around by the time DQII came out, so once again, they had to rely on ideas from western RPGs they liked.

In my opinion, II is the first jRPG that actually feels good to play, if you can put yourself into the mindset of an 80's gamer. The designers felt the 1v1 battles of the first title were boring - a sentiment which I share - and put in different groups of enemies as well as extra party members for you to find. One thing that some of these old RPGs that only let you target a group of enemies does is drawing only one enemy sprite on-screen to represent the entire group. Surprisingly, this game does not do that, even though it predates all the ones that do. It draws every enemy on-screen, which doesn't seem like much nowadays, but it's very appreciated nonetheless. Sure, it came at the cost of battle backgrounds (all fights in this game are set against pure blackness), but they did the right thing. The party itself follows what would become a typical archetype of 3-person groups: One character who is a jack-of-all-stats, balanced between physical prowess and magic, one who is focused on physical combat (in this game, this character actually has no magic capabilities whatsoever), and one who is a pure mage. Perhaps surprisingly, because these structures hadn't become tropes yet, the main character is the physical one, and he's also pretty much the most reliable party member by a reasonable margin, even though all he can do is attack normally. Balance issues aside (we'll talk about that later), I honestly sort of dig this arrangement. It's a little bit of a breath of fresh air to see the main character in an RPG rely completely on his weapons, and in the future, in any DQ title that has a reasonable degree of character customization, I always try to make the protagonist a physical powerhouse, to match the one from this game. It hardly ever works, but hey, it just goes for show that I enjoyed it while playing. Given that the other party members join you as you progress through the game at specific points, that also means the complexity of magic spells is added to your arsenal slowly, getting you used to it without feeling overwhelming. Sure, the game is simple enough that it wouldn't be overwhelming regardless of how they had set up the pacing, but I never felt like any of the times I struggled were because of insufficient knowledge of the game mechanics. So, the battles are fun enough, and they feel just right in terms of complexity vs. focus. The strategies to win are simple - really, the whole game is very simple - but it does its job well, and it allowed the developers to have near-perfect control of the game's difficulty curve. As a result, it is also - almost up to the end of the game - pretty nice, even if the whole thing is on the challenging end of things. At the end, it gets... A little special. We'll get to that later.

Let's take a step back and look at the gameplay outside battles. First of all, the story is... sparse, to say the least. Not as much as the one in the first game, and supplemented in the international version by a frankly kick-ass introduction that gives the experience a certain tone and atmosphere I appreciate a lot, but still, it's 1987. jRPGs were... not so much about the story back then, if you can believe that. In fact, they were more like an extension of a point-and-click adventure game. DQII is, essentially, a big fetch quest. In a different story, one that has enough plot points that you can sense a type of underlying narrative progression, I would not enjoy having the game interrupted by a blatant collectathon. However, the fetch quest aspect is basically the soul of this entire game. The extremely loose story paves the way for an experience that boils down to pure exploration and combat, with light elements of puzzle-solving woven in, using the fetch quest premise simply as a background to leave the developers with fertile soil to plant their little tricks and enigmas without worrying too much about how it would all connect rationally. And here, we witness an aspect of old games that could only spring about as a byproduct of limited graphics, ill-defined representations of the setting's reality, and a healthy disregard for common sense, things that were the style at the time. The puzzles, and sometimes just the exploration, violate logic quite heavily. Traversing through a monster-infested castle to get to a point that is technically outside the castle, but you can't just walk around it because most of the outside grass tiles are exit tiles that warp you back to the world map? Sure, why not? Having dedicated "teleport-room" maps that only serve the explicit purpose of housing a teleporter to another part of the world, except for one which also houses a chest with an essential item if you walk along the right border of the map, but not the identical-looking left one? Mario 2 hid a goal post inside a secret too, so yeah! Throw that in! Stairs down in a brick islet surrounded by water which brings you to a room that's... Also at water level? We hardly have enough tiles to go around, let alone a set to represent underwater or underground rooms, so whatever! Nobody cares! And, honestly, I truly don't care, either. If a game is up to, let's say, willfully forgo a bit of logic in order to formulate a creative puzzle to play around with your expectations, then all the more power to it. I honestly feel like puzzles nowadays are too sectioned-off, contained within a single room in a single dungeon, ready for the player to walk in, solve it, move on to the next point in the flowchart and never think about it twice. When puzzles are woven in so closely with the world, requiring the player to think outside the box at all times, as they're out there exploring, it makes the whole game feel like it's working together to make a point, and helps reduce that feeling one gets when playing RPGs where there are very separate elements of gameplay that... Don't really connect to each other very well. Sure, you're blatantly aware you're playing a videogame at all times, and it's not super great for immersion, but this was a time when there just... wasn't enough memory for immersion. It was a constraint that naturally gave way to challenges that capitalized on its own limitations, and therefore, created a type of immersion of its own, where the player is completely sucked into their own thoughts, holding a notebook with a rough sketch of the world map in their hand (yeah, I might have done that), taking notes and thinking where in the world could that last crest possibly be?! I think DQII hit that sweet spot of looseness vs. clarity in the narrative that helped these wild, nonsensical elements flourish. I really don't know how other people react to this sort of thing, but I don't care. I had a good time with it, and soon after this game, everything RPG started to become more focused on story. That's definitely not a bad thing, but I felt a kind of clear, developer-to-player kind of communication from these small bits of wrongness that made me more aware of the time, effort and creativity put into it by the people who were making it. I realized that, were I in the shoes of the dude who was making all this crazy stuff, I'd be stoked to see my friends trying to solve them. I'm not trying to be sentimental, that's how I honestly felt while playing that part with the teleporter and the chest. In any case, I appreciated it.

Then you get to the road to Rhone.

Though, apparently, the game was not pressured into deadlines by higher-ups, I did read something about one of the guys in the team offhandedly setting a deadline that turned out to be just that little bit too tight, requiring it to be delayed from November 1986 to January 1987. This, along with the fact that, at the time, the second title in a franchise had the habit of being designed for people who were hardcore fans of the first game in that series, might go a little ways into explaining why everything starting from the road to Rhone is absolutely fucking brutal. Every element of the game that, previously, was a tad questionable, leaving that little itch of worry in the back of your head, returns here with the express intent to make your life miserable. I have a high tolerance for difficulty, one that is even higher for RPGs where, for the most part, there are always ways to slightly circumvent it and make your life easier. The simplicity of design in DQII means that this is not the case here, and from this point on you're expected to not only have the skill and familiarity you've accrued while playing, but also a very healthy amount of luck to go with you, otherwise you will die. And rest assured, you WILL die. In fact, due to the specific way in which the player's mortality rate skyrockets in Rhone, it's almost not even a matter of the game being "hard" in the traditional sense, because it doesn't exactly require you to be strong enough or smart enough anymore, it just requires you to be patient enough to slowly trudge through the mountain of corpses of your former attempts until you figure out how to minimize your risks to the lowest degree they possibly can be minimized, then hitting that sweet spot of luck and control that finally allows you to reach the end of the game. This particular way of handling things means that, after you hit about level 30 with the main character, further leveling will only render you negligibly less likely to die, and the effects are not strong enough from level to level to even be clearly noticed. But what exactly makes it so hard? The answer is primarily RNG. When you reach the end, you will begin to notice just how much RNG there is through the whole game. Starting off, the turn order is entirely random. There is an agility stat, but I never found any evidence of it actually factoring into who goes first in battle (instead, it's a carryover from DQI that calculates your base defense). If there are more than three enemies, you're at a disadvantage, but even if there aren't, a stray run of bad luck - which is guaranteed to happen given the density of random encounters - means you're gonna have to scramble with enemy attacks, and they are perfectly capable of leaving you in such a state that it would take a miracle to put yourself back in shape, if they don't just wipe you out instantly. Now, remember, two of your three characters have magic. However, at this point in the game, enemies have a large amount of magic resistance to all kinds of different spells, and magic resistance in this game means that there is a chance the spell simply won't work. If it does, it deals full damage. If it doesn't, it deals none at all. I don't know about you, but I almost never take my chances with low-accuracy, gimmicky stuff in other games. This one renders all spells like that given enough time. If you decide to rely on physical strength, the main character is the only one who will bring you any significant results. The pure mage at this point in the game is far more efficient at support casting than direct damage, and the balanced character is - memetically, at this point - incompetent at both, and also sucks as a physical fighter, so once again, you're boned on that front. All of a sudden, running away becomes an alluring strategy. However, once again, there is an ever-prevalent random factor to it, so the pressure is on in all fronts. The game becomes a challenge of carefully planning out how to simply survive each encounter. Do you take the chance and run? If you fail, you'll be wailed on by the full force of the enemy party, and will likely be too weak to attempt mounting a resistance. Do you take the bait and unleash the full force of your attacks? What if they all target different enemies in the group? You won't deal enough damage to kill one of them, so you'll suffer heavy retaliation and waste precious MP that could be spent on healing spells. Did you win or escape successfully? You've only lost about 20% of your health, but some encounters can relieve you of the remaining 80% before you can even act, so do you spend MP healing or do you trudge on because you already don't have that many to go around? If you make the wrong decision at any of these break points - and rest assured, there won't be a shortage of them - you'll either die or get so close to death it will be almost irrelevant to keep going. And then, it's back to the last save point. Rinse and repeat many times until you clear the road and get to Rhone proper, for one final save point and one last, grueling stretch of game before the final boss. Here, the game introduces enemies that have, no joke, a move that kills your entire party and has 100% accuracy. Typing it out, it sounds like hyperbole, like i'm salty that I died so much and am exaggerating the things the game does in order to trick myself into believing that it was super impossible times infinity, but no, it's true. To be fair, there isn't a high chance the enemy will perform this move, but when they do, there's absolutely nothing you can do to save yourself. Just reset the game when the screen turns red. Other than that, the rest of the lovely cast of enemies rounding up the final waves are more than capable of just killing you the regular way, so keep your wits about you like you did back in the cave and grind yourself up until the stat bonuses start getting negligible, because now, you need to face five bosses in a row. Right, okay, technically you can go back and heal yourself right before the last one, but I didn't know that, so if you're an idiot like me, try to get ahold of a Wizard Ring, as well. It's the only way to heal MP, and can be used multiple times until - you guessed it - it randomly decides to break. After that, you just have to contend with two bosses that use a move that heals all their HP when it gets low, so you also have to roughly keep track of their state in your mind so you can unleash a full round of attack before they can get in that heal. Unless your spell doesn't hit them, of course. Or they happen to go first. Or you just barely miss the threshold of HP that will actually kill them. Oh, and be careful! One of the other bosses also knows the instant death move. He won't use it often, but 30 or so attempts in, you're likely to see it once or twice.

Then, the final boss can randomly spawn with a number of hit points between 75% and 100% of his assigned value (every enemy does that), and you're gonna deal an average of about 15% damage per turn to it. Sounds easy at first, but he will take you out in either one or two moves, and...

...Here's the motherload...

...He has a 1 in 16 chance of casting the full heal move at any point in the battle. And he WILL do that the first 2 or 3 times you get to him, sucking you dry of resources and smashing your face all the way back to the save point to try the 5 bosses again, so it's back to grinding attempts until you have another mostly hopeless shot at him.

But when you get him, man...

When you do it...

*sigh*

Anyway, this was a long, rambling, focus-shifting tangent just to correctly capture the degree of luck and randomness that constitutes the final stretch of Dragon Quest II. How does it impact the rest of the game? Well, I still appreciate it for what it did right, and there's a small, strange part of me that actually thinks the insane difficulty perfectly fits the stakes that the game set up, but it is, nevertheless, very hard. And once again, it's the kind of hard that is virtually impossible to circumvent. For any average, non-god-tier player, there is no alternate way of tackling the simple-looking, but highly controlled challenges in this game that trivializes it. You can't change your party, you can't buy extra spells, you can't really use stat-up items to change stat configurations in any significant way. You just have to keep trying and hope it works, and for the first few dozen times, it won't, so you'll just have to deal with it.

Still, it shows, even up to the end, that the DQ team has a certain grasp of consistency in design that will slowly grow and adapt as the series embraces new complexities through the years. DQII stands as somewhat of a black sheep in the series (as the second titles of old franchises often do), but I think it has its place, and it's surely a wild ride. Also, if you can get yourself into the mindset of late 80's design, I can assure you it won't ever be boring. Maddening, sure, but not boring. It's more fun in the midgame, in my opinion, as for someone who is very used to RPGs, it can be exceesingly simplistic at the start and too hopelessly uncontrollable at the end, but I feel it deserves a score of 7 out of 10. It's pure gameplay, and, for what it's worth, you WILL get an intense experience. Just be ready to shake, a lot. And pad your walls.

#rpg #video games #review #dragon quest

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willowlark369 · 6 years

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Survival is Imperative

This post discusses a concept which is controversial and features a great deal of disturbing information. There is a great deal of torture and misused (abused) medical procedures/practices discussed. Yet what I feel may be most problematic for most people to digest is that the concept I will be laying out will challenge the idea that an individual’s agency is a hard set dichotomy where one either has it completely or they have been stripped of it entirely.

I’m not treating this as a proper essay or academic paper. I’ve taken several levels of courses in the fields of Psychology, Sociology, and Anthropology along with specialty diversity courses. I’m pulling a lot of concepts from that academic work, and since I am not making a paper to present, I will not be citing the dual-minors-worth of knowledge that led me to the conclusions I am sharing. I apologize if this upsets you. I know that Tumblr is such a bastion of academic learning that this must be absolutely shocking. (Was that too sarcastic? OFW.)

Reader discretion is advised after the Read More break.

Let’s get the hard part out of the way:

Steve Rogers is wrong about Bucky Barnes, and he’s only showing disrespect by making his claims about Barnes’ innocence of the crimes of the Winter Soldier. Whenever Steve Rogers talks about the Winter Soldier as a separate entity from Bucky Barnes, he is ignoring the trauma of the man he claims as his friend.

Still with me? Haven’t skipped down to the bottom to post nasty comments?

Good. Now I will lay out the why for you.

Everyone has heard of Ivan Pavlov or more likely, Pavlov’s experiments with conditioned responses in dogs. He rang a bell before giving his dogs a treat and eventually all he had to do to get the dogs to salivate was ring the bell, regardless of the presence of a treat. This basic concept is actually the idea behind Cognitive Behavior Therapy (CBT) where a person works on identifying their own conditioned responses and work to disable them (and/or redirect them, depending on the goals set by the patient).

Yeah, that’s right, folks. Conditioning is something which can be done to humans. How do we know? Because Dr. John Watson--the less fun one, apparently--and his lovely graduate hostage assistant Rosalie Rayner figured out how to create phobias in an otherwise healthy child, and that was apparently really inspiring to a great many people including the Mother of Behavioral Therapy Mary Clover Jones. Dr. Watson’s paper on the experiment came out in the early part of 1920.

For those of you playing the home game, that’s almost a decade and a half before a certain sniper took his tumble off a train in the Alps. In terms of science, that’s a really long time.

It’s long enough for the science branch of a certain religious cult to start working on a device to make it easier. This device’s purpose was understood to be memory suppression. This effect was achievable through what could be loosely described as Electrical Shock Therapy (EST). Pass enough current through the synapses and they don’t connect so good, at least for a little while.

It also hurts like a motherfucker, which is also what makes EST so useful for the treatment of behavioral disorders. I’m using the term disorder here in its most antiquated definition. Some of the disorders treated with early versions of EST were ‘hysteria’, masturbation, book-reading (in women), and refusal to marry (again, in women). Treatment was given until the patient stopped showing the problematic behavior.

It also works as a deterrent for not showing desired behavior, where the patient is given treatment for not doing what the doctor wanted. Other behavior modifying treatments are isolation, withholding of food/drink, other pain delivery systems... really, there’s a lot of manipulation techniques out there, in the real world. A lot of them can be unquestionably considered torture, but some are just simply psychological. Repeat something in a calm, reasonable tone of voice enough times, and a person begins to believe it. Show kindness to someone whose world is narrowed into nothing more than bright spots of pain and they will want to believe you, even knowing that you are the source of the pain.

Eventually, inevitably, reward does not need to be kindness, does not need to be pleasurable or unquestionably positive. It just needs to be a cessation of pain, maybe even just a lessening if given enough time. Given enough time, a knowledgeable individual can create conditional responses for any number of things, especially once the subject begins to show willingness to adapt.

That’s what we humans are good at, you know. We adapt to our environments, even if doing so might compromise firmly held ideals and principles. Instinctively, we seek to survive and to that end, nothing becomes taboo. It’s easy to stand outside of a situation and say “I’ll never do that” but historically speaking, yeah, you probably would. If the situation called for it, if it were bad enough, if the options were laid out the right way and every other path was blocked--if you knew that everyone had to think you were dead and there was no hope of rescue.

See, Sgt. James “Bucky” Barnes fell from a train traveling through the Alps. They thought he was dead, even without recovering a body. There was no hope for the SSR to come to the rescue, no reason to believe the punk was going to show up once again to save him from the pain, the hunger, the cold. He was alone in enemy hands, undergoing torture as they sought to shape him into what they wanted him to become: a willing participant in their plans capable of taking care of any problem they needed cleaned up.

He was alone and without hope, but Bucky still fought them for over twenty years before they deemed him controlled enough, conditioned enough, to begin using. The problem with conditioning is that the associations need to be maintained routinely or else they fade. So, despite being usable, Barnes would still have been routinely and methodologically tortured in order to preserve that willingness to obey without hesitation or question.

Sgt. Barnes spent over seventy years as a prisoner of war. Sgt. Barnes managed to survive over seventy years in the control of a known terrorist organization by learning when to fight and when to acquiesce to the demands of his captors. Sgt. Barnes learned how to disassociate from emotional responses which only served to slow down action and become better at the behavior Hydra wanted from him.

Sgt. Barnes became the Fist of Hydra in order to survive an untenable situation. He is the Winter Soldier and he willingly completed all missions given to him. Because his entire existence relied upon pleasing his handlers and if there is one thing that humans are good at, it is survival.

Survival is imperative.

However, while there is no question about innocence in this case, the responsibility is also not in question. Sgt. Barnes is not innocent but he is also not responsible. The responsibility shift is two-fold: military chain of command and ability to consent without duress.

Military chain of command creates a buffer of sorts for military personnel who are following directives from those higher in their direct chain of command. There is bleed-over of this buffer into similarly martial organization such as the FBI, CIA, and police. Pretty much, if an organization is authorized to use force against others, then there’s a chain of command exemption to responsibility. Hesitation or refusal to follow the chain of command is actually considered a negative trait that can limit promotions and career duration. Entry programs (such as Basic for the Armed Forces) are specifically designed to create a mentality where the knee-jerk reaction is to follow the commands of a recognized superior. Of course, under normal circumstances, most individuals will not mindlessly follow orders if they go completely contrary to social mores such as harming traditional noncombatants (women, children, the sick, the elderly) or seem really questionable (blow up this bomb while standing beside it; poison this well; execute the ally standing next to you).

Which brings me to the second fold: ability to consent without duress.

In case y’all haven’t heard, no means no. (Yeah, I’m fucking going there. Buckle up, readers. This is a crash course in Consent 110.) Straight up, body autonomy is sacrosanct. The only person allowed to make your body do things is you. You are the only one who gets to choose what your body does, even if that choice is to let someone else make your body do things. Anything else is a violation of your body autonomy.

However, it must be recognized that there are times when saying no is not really an option, for whatever reason, and even saying yes is done due to circumstances which negate the expressed permission. Why? Because it’s not really consent when there’s a threat or manipulation involved, when the choice is between doing the thing or dying (or being harmed or someone else being harmed/killed). That creates duress, which negates consent even while willingness to participate continues.

Analogy time: think of any sex act you want. Maybe it’s your favorite; maybe you’ve done it hundreds of times and you’re damn good at it. The only difference is that you don’t want to do it this time with this partner. Now imagine that partner holding a gun to your head, telling you that they will shoot you if you don’t do it. You do that thing and manage to live. You did that thing, and nothing really changes that. However, it was not consensual.

You are not innocent but you are also not responsible.

Ultimately, what you are left with at end of the day is a PoW who did everything necessary to survive, including a lot of horrible things that affected others. I think this is really fucking important to note: Sgt. Barnes is a survivor. He did things, made choices, which clearly haunt him in order to ensure that survival.

He did those things because Sgt. Barnes became the Winter Soldier to survive.

Steve Rogers continuously invalidates that. Steve Rogers makes himself unavailable as a recovery support person because he refuses to acknowledge the trauma and guilt that would accompany such actions. I’m sure that his intentions are to be helpful and comforting. Steve Rogers once went on a suicide mission for Sgt. Barnes and later decided letting the guy beat him to a pulp was a good idea when the alternative was fighting him. Never doubt that Steve Rogers loves Bucky Barnes and that it is unconditional.

However, harm is not measured by intention. It is measured by effect.

Invalidating a survivor of violence? Not cool. Insisting that “it wasn’t really you” to someone who had essentially been raped? Also not cool.

And you know what effect that has? It makes the survivor unable to comfortably open up to you. Especially if disagreement with an authority figure was a past cause for corrective behavioral modification. Logic may say the punishment won’t happen but emotionally? Essentially, you are removed from the support team, and this is after you have created a situation in which the survivor is unable to remain in their previous safe place.

So, in summation, Bucky Barnes is the Winter Soldier due to being a PoW willing to do what it took to survive, but his blast-from-the-past best friend doesn’t acknowledge any of that which is hella hurtful and dismissive, regardless of said friend’s intentions. It interferes with the possibility of recovery which is inherently harmful to someone who has already been through so much and sets up the continuation of the conditioned behaviors, furthering the trauma in a way that is quite possibly worse than the outright violence of before.

Because Bucky Barnes will not stand up for himself. Resistance has been conditioned out of him. And now the person hurting him is a trusted individual declaring that he just wants to help.

Please respect the survival of Sgt. James Barnes by acknowledging his trauma, even if it makes you uncomfortable. Survivors do not have to make you comfortable with what it took to gain that status. Survivors do not owe you a picturesque view of their trauma.

Survival itself is the only imperative.

#MCU #Meta #Bucky Barnes #Winter Soldier #Steve Rogers #Trauma #Torture #Conditioning #PoW Survival #Trauma Recover #discussion of consent

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novaneedshockey · 3 years

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During every pregame skate, I used to look into the crowd and wonder what the fans could see.

I mean, like, what could they really see?

Could they see the cuts on my hands — and the blood on my laces — from obsessively lacing and relacing my skates again and again?

Could they see the bags under my eyes from having gotten just two hours of sleep for the fifth straight night?

Could they see the pain I was going through from trying to work up the nerve to tell the coach that tonight was the night when it was just all too much, and I couldn’t play?

I’ve been an NHL player for 11 years. And until very recently, I’ve had untreated obsessive-compulsive disorder, or OCD as we commonly know it.

There is simply no way to overstate the impact it’s had on my career, and on my life. It controlled me, it almost broke me for good. And there were times when I thought I might never be able to tell a story like this. But I’m here, and I am.

I want to tell this story because, really, it’s not about me. It’s about what happened to me, yes — but it’s not about me. It’s about, hopefully, getting people help. Even just one person. I know, without a doubt, that there are athletes and people all around the world suffering from the same thing I do, or something similar. Because I understand what OCD, if left untreated for too long, can do to a person.

The thing is, in the beginning, it seemed harmless. And I remember the beginning.

I mean the very, very beginning.

When I was little, maybe seven or eight years old, I’d count the trees when I would go on car rides with my parents. I’d be in the back seat of our caravan, and I’d watch them go by.

One, two, three, four.

Then I’d restart.

One, two, three, four.

The faster we went, the faster the trees would pass and the faster I’d count.

It didn’t seem out of the ordinary. It was just … I don’t know, the way I was.

My OCD manifested itself in different forms throughout my life. When I was in junior hockey, and even when I played at BU. I worried constantly about injuries. I’d think about my knees when I was on the ice, despite never having had any knee problems before. I had a chronic groin injury from when I was younger, and when it would be flaring up, I’d just drop down into a squat while I was doing everyday things to make sure it was O.K.

It was that feeling of a lack of control that eventually triggered the negative thoughts — like the ones I used to have during pregame skates.

And it’s almost this entirely separate part of your brain that gets activated when this happens. For me, my ability to play hockey never felt threatened when I was young. I grew up in Winnipeg, and like so many kids, I wanted to play in the NHL. And I always knew deep down that I was going to make it. My dad and grandfather had both played in the NHL. It’s all I ever wanted to do. It’s all I ever wanted to be.

My OCD played a role in making me the player I was.

For a long time, I didn’t have negative thoughts on the ice. I obsessed over my game, but in a positive way. I wanted to be the best player I could be because it was … it was everything to me.

My OCD played a role in making me the player I was. And I know there are many athletes out there who have that same connection. They might be afraid to seek help because on the outside they’re “succeeding” and they won’t want to change anything. I know I can tell them that that isn’t the case, but I also know they might not believe me.

Because I probably wouldn’t have believed it, either.

When the Nashville Predators took me in the first round of the draft in 2008, it was such an incredible moment to experience with my family. I had no negative thoughts or concerns about any of my OCD tendencies. I was just me. Colin Wilson, NHL player. That’s what mattered. And at the time I don’t think the term OCD had ever been brought up to me or had even crossed my mind.

I’d always tried to hide anything I did that could have been classified by others as superstitious or odd. But once I reached the NHL, I basically couldn’t anymore.

I remember in 2010, my rookie year, when Predators GM David Poile sat me down with assistant GM Paul Fenton, team psychologist Gary Solomon, and my parents and told me I had OCD..

They had noticed after picking up on a preflight routine I’d go through at airports.

To be honest, I’m a bit hesitant to talk about this part, because my tendencies, my experiences, they’re personal to me. And I don’t want anyone to read this and feel bad for me, or to think I’m glorifying what I went through. But I feel it’s important because the element of control — of having it or not having it — is what pushes people with OCD into dark places.

Before a flight, I had things I needed to do. I had to clean up all the trash around our gate. Every single wrapper, piece of plastic, you name it. Into the trash. Then I had to be the last passenger on the plane, no matter what. Then, finally, I actually had to talk to the pilots. It didn’t have to be about anything specific, but I had to at least talk to them. After I did all that, I felt safe to fly.

It stemmed from a fear of flying I’d had ever since I was a kid — and had grown into this routine. It all revolved around control of the situation. I needed to feel like I had a hand in what was going on.

But at the time I completely discounted what David Poile and everyone else was telling me. I was a 20-year-old living his dream in the NHL. I felt fine, I felt healthy.

There’s no chance I have that, I thought.

I don’t know what would have happened if I had taken that talk more seriously. Which is one of the reasons I want to help those who are facing the same things I did, because I know what it’s like being on the other side of the table. It can be hard to accept what you’re hearing. And I didn’t. I just ignored it and told them I would be fine. I hid myself, and my issues, from everyone.

After that, I basically spent the majority of my career in what I’d call fight-or-flight mode.

To this day, I honestly have no damn clue how I scored 20 goals in the 2014–15 season. I played each game, for years, in this state of panic because my OCD had begun to take over every element of my life. I went from obsessing over injuries off the ice to thinking I was going to get hurt every time I stepped on it — thinking I'd get hurt every shift. Or feeling like my skates weren’t tied properly. I’d have to stay in the locker room and tie them over and over again, as tight as I could, until my hands bled. And that was just a short-term fix. For years, I felt like I was skating on stilts because my skates never felt right. But I just got into this terrible state, like a petrified animal trapped in a corner. I was almost unconscious on the ice, in a way.

I was so energized after games that I couldn’t sleep, and the lack of sleep led me down a road that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. I truly mean that.

There’s a version of this story where I tell you what happened next.

I read those kinds of stories all the time, and I think they’re very powerful and important. The bravery and honesty of those who have gone through the darkest of moments and can share their experiences with others should be applauded. But what I went through is just for me to know right now, and I hope you’ll respect that.

All I can say really is that, during the Stanley Cup finals in 2017, when we were playing the Penguins — I hit bottom.

My brain blew up.

I was a shell of the person I am today.

For the three or so years leading up to that point, I had been taking Xanax and Seroquel to help me sleep. One is addictive and gets you high, the other I would refer to as a horse tranquilizer, because it would knock me out. One night I would take Xanax, the next Seroquel. During that playoff run, I had started partying more as well, to numb the pain. The combination of those pills, mixed with alcohol, and years of untreated OCD … I found rock bottom.

Those had been prescribed to me to help me. But they didn’t do that at all. They made me lose myself. The stressors I had — the OCD, the lack of sleep, the pressure of playoff hockey — those pills just seemed to amplify all that and drive me to a place I never wanted to get to.

The combination of those pills, mixed with alcohol, and years of untreated OCD … I found rock bottom.

It became so bad that I remember when we beat Anaheim to win the Western Conference finals, everyone on the team was, of course, really happy. But all I wanted to do was go home and bawl my eyes out. I was a complete emotional wreck. I felt like I hadn’t been playing my best. I felt like I hadn’t contributed enough to the success of the team and it was driving me insane.

One of the things about OCD is that you have this internal critic that nags at you — that constantly reminds you that, no matter how hard you try, you aren’t ever in control, and because you’re not, you aren’t good enough.

And in the Cup finals, I was barely able to function. I was running on fumes, my head felt like it was on fire — I felt like I was going insane.

I knew I couldn’t live like this anymore. The team and my family had noticed that I wasn’t myself. When the season ended, after we lost the Cup finals, I realized that the only choice I had was to truly heal myself. I had started talking to a therapist earlier that season when I was really struggling, but what happened in the playoffs pushed me to work on myself even more.

After Nashville traded me to the Avalanche that summer, I continued to keep my issues from nearly everyone. But one of the most important connections I’ve ever made in my life was when I was introduced to a trained plant-medicine facilitator after the trade.

The way in which so many mental health cases are treated with pills and other addictive, unhealthy measures, really didn’t sit well with me. So under the guide of my facilitator, I started taking doses of psychedelics and other similar medicines that may seem unapproachable for many. But it was that sort of alternative help that did so much for me.

The word psychedelics might put people off, I get that — but I can’t stress enough how critical they were in my recovery. That experience showed me a completely different side of myself and gave me a deep sense of spirituality. It put me in touch with a part of me that I didn’t even know existed. I felt like what I was experiencing was greater than myself, my journey, if that makes sense.

Finding this differing approach changed my life, without a doubt.

Alternative medicines are important and should always be considered when treating mental health issues.

I have a plan for how to help introduce it to others, but it wasn’t just finding myself spiritually that helped, of course.

In 2019, during my second year in Colorado, I made another really significant breakthrough — I contacted the NHLPA, which put me in touch with an OCD specialist. And meeting that person changed my life. It was like meeting with a psychic, in a way.

He asked me if I’d ever felt like I was going crazy, if I’d ever felt like my world was completely out of control. My jaw was on the floor. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. He was asking me — almost telling me — about myself and connecting with me like someone who actually got it. He wasn’t just there to prescribe some numbing drug or tell me to just think about something else.

For the first time in my entire adult life, I felt understood.

In those sessions, I began to understand that one of the key steps in the healing process is not only acknowledging that what’s going on in your brain isn’t normal, but also, more importantly, acknowledging that it isn’t your fault.

Since I started with the specialist, I’ve learned to develop a sense of self-compassion that I didn’t have before. It’s so difficult to not blame myself when I feel my mind going to … that place. So now I do my best to be aware, to tell myself that things like that will happen from time to time, and to just assure myself that it’s going to be O.K.

I knew my OCD wouldn’t go away just because somebody could see it for what it was. And I won’t lie to you ... every day since then has been hard. I still have an internal alarm that goes off when I feel like I need to be in control. It can be exhausting to deal with. But every day since that meeting last year, it has also gotten easier.

But this last year has been tough. I had to have double hip surgery in December 2019 because of issues that came from the groin problems I’ve had since I was a kid. But my hips haven’t healed properly, and I haven’t been able to walk normally all year, so I just had to have it done again. It’s hard because I haven’t been on the ice in a long, long time. I haven’t had much control.

I don’t know when I will again, either.

If I’m being honest, I think my days of playing hockey are probably over.

I haven’t quite come to terms with it fully. But that is the truth.

I’ve done a lot to prepare for my next step in life. I’m completely sober. I’m back at school in Boston working on a psychology major. The last few years I’ve been working with a new, more traditional talk therapist who has been one of the pillars that I lean on as I transition toward life after hockey. They’ve helped me think through everything and see the next chapter of my life in a positive light.

I’m also working with a group of people I got connected with over the last three years of getting help, and we’re going to open a space in Austin for alternative medicines and approaches to mental health issues — OCD included.

Mental health, and what we know about it, is evolving and so must the ways we treat it.

We want to help people, both physiologically and neurologically, through things like neurofeedback, floating, assisted psychotherapy, and other alternative therapies that aren’t widely accessible. We’ll also have teaching programs to ensure that once you leave, you’ll know how to keep up your routines on your own. It’s going to be a space that completely strips any stigma away from mental health issues. It will be a place that will be nourishing and safe, for all those who desperately need it.

Mental health, and what we know about it, is evolving and so must the ways we treat it.

I want people to know that there are spaces where you can be yourself, where you can feel understood and loved and know that there is help there for you. I want that to be what you take out of this story.

The human experience includes an incredible amount of suffering, even if you’re living your dream. There are lots of people battling OCD right now. I know how brave they are, how strong they are for fighting it. I know it’s probably taken over their lives, and they feel like there’s nowhere to turn to, or nobody to help them … to understand them. But I want them to know that there is someone. And I hope that they know I’m here to help.

We can’t get through it alone.

If it weren’t for the people who truly helped me — my spiritual counsel, my alternative medicine facilitator, my OCD therapist and my talk therapist — I wouldn’t be the person I am today. That’s my team, and they have given me the opportunity to help others.

That’s my focus in life right now.

And like I said, I don’t know if I’ll be back out on the ice anytime soon. But I know that, no matter what the future holds for me, I did it. I played in the NHL. I lived my dream. And I fought through hell to make a career for myself. My name might not be on the Stanley Cup, and that’s fine. Because I know there is an opportunity ahead of me to not just leave my mark on the game of hockey, but also on lives all across the world.

I don’t want to pretend like I have it all figured out, because I don’t. I’m still learning as I go. But what I do know comes from what I went through. So if you’re going through it, remember this:

Be kind to yourself, to your mind.

Have patience with your soul, your body.

And know that you don’t have to do it alone.

—Colin

0 notes

thisweekingundamwing · 6 years

Text

This Week in Gundam Wing: November 19th - 25th

Greetings Fandom!

Tons of great stuff for you to check out this week, make sure you leave the creators some love!

AO3 DID act up some this week when I was working on the update, so please don’t hesitate to speak up if something is missing! I’m more than happy to revise the list, and I promise it wasn’t intentional!

Don’t forget to submit or tag us in all your neat stuff guys! It really helps compile the update every week!

Keep up the great work!

-Mod CB

Below the cut!

Fanfiction:

(please take note of any warnings within the fics themselves, do not rely on this list as exhaustive)

@amberlyinviolet, @yourbloodlikewine

In This Light, Chapter 10

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12386715/chapters/29284572

Duo x OC, Trowa x OC, Solo x OC. AU, child abuse mention, Sexual Assault Mention, homophobic parents, Re-Written Characters, Drug Use, Violence, off screen murder

Duo spent the last semester working in his older brother's coffee shop. He's resigned himself to a boring spring when a stranger appears, shaking up his entire life.Eli left home last fall, choosing to spend the last six months living out of his van on his travels from the Midwest to the East Coast. By the time he arrives at Ink's, the novelty of traveling alone has started to wear off. Still, the last thing he's expecting is to meet someone who's going to change all that for him

@anaranesindanarie

Magic, Mortals, and Gundam Gods, Chapter 3

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12667185/chapters/29141973

Pairings to be decided

Magic, Gods, Poachers, AU, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe- Gundam Wing, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Alternate Universe- Avatars

In the legends of the Five Gods, it is said that the second God, Deathscythe, was very protective of the other four and would do anything to keep them alive. He would fight entire wars, taking hit after hit until he couldn’t anymore, until he used every drop of magic that he had to keep them safe. He would fade away and the others would follow. Their magic would then find its way to those it deemed worthy and the cycle would start again. And now… The Five Gods have been reborn into a world full of magic and war.

Unnatural November submission

Awareness_bringer

Odin Lowe Junior

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12815355

Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, challenge story

The boy who would've been called Heero Yuy is found by OZ. How will he move forward in such an enviroment? You decide. Challenge story.

@chronicwhimsy

Spirits

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12769878

2x5

Unnatural November submission, ghost story, gift fic for @thelaughingstar

Everyone knows about Duo's ghosts. He collects them. But when he collects them, they feel lighter somehow.Some ghosts stay longer than others.

Darkpanthress

No Other Way

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/8219920/1/No-Other-Way

There have been a lot of clichéd stories. This is picking some clichés and just dumping them into a new version of the story. Heero needs an out from a difficult situation with Relena, and the out seems to be a fake engagement!

@duointherain

Blood on the Brain, Chapter 2

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12756882/chapters/29131014

1x2

It's wartime. Duo and Heero have just gotten together and Heero goes off on a mission that doesn't go well. Relena manages to message Duo, asking him to help Heero. Combat and medical intervention ensue.

Not Quite Single, Chapter 4

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12786444/chapters/29230788

GW x Captain America crossover

1x2, Steve x Bucky, graphic descriptions of violence

It's nearly a hundred years after the wars. Tech has kept all the boys healthy and young. While on a salvage mission, Duo recovers Steve Rogers. James Barnes has been Heero's colleague for over twenty years. There are a lot of misunderstandings. The fork in chapter two made me laugh. :)

@gw-ficrecfriday

Double or Nothing

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12806889

4xD, old fic, not quite explicit

Games are played to be won, not lost. (Quatre, Dorothy, and...sexy chess?)

Jonginwankenobi

Amour et Boules de Neiges

https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12717364/1/Amour-et-Boules-de-Neiges

En vacances dans les Alpes françaises, Heero et sa soeur Kari vont faire une rencontre qu'ils ne seront pas prêts d'oublier. UA publication hebdomadaire

@kangofu-cb

Don’t You Know, Chapter 1

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12821766/chapters/29271852

2x5, background 1x3, fluff, cop drama, FBI agents, angsty backstory but the fic is fluff, AU - Modern Setting

Cop!Duo meets SpecialAgent!Wufei in this fluffy rom-com.

Birthday fic for @chronicwhimsy

East of Eden, Chapter 5

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12591796/chapters/29188620

2x4x5, background 1x3, Alternate Universe - Supernatural Elements, Fae & Fairies, Vampires, Were-Creatures, Blood and Violence, Sex, Magic, Angst, Death, Canon-Typical Violence

Wufei needs help to save his clan from a mysterious enemy. He leaves, looking for help from a near-mythical figure: The God of Death. He may, however, get more than he bargained for...

Lil1337

Gundam Wing Month 2017, Chapter 25

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12599464/chapters/29279403

Multiple pairings and settings - please note chapter headings for specific relationships and tags

A collection of drabbles and short fics posted one a day for the month of November in celebration of Gundam Wing Month.

LittleMouse

Warcraft, Chapter 5

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12429339/chapters/29254980

AU, fantasy

Alternate Fantasy World - A world where people have ‘Talents’ that allow them to control certain elements. Different Talents can ‘Join’ to become a specific entity - some can heal, some can repair damage to land and buildings, some are weapons. The Talents you ‘Join’ with are called your Others. The perfect Joining is of five separate Talents. One lonely Fire Talent far to the North has given up waiting for his Others - good thing they haven’t stopped looking for him.

What Dreams May Come, Chapter 2

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12772926/chapters/29254422

2x5, 1x3x4, flashback, non-con touching, violence, threesome

This is a sequel to ‘Perchance to Dream’, and I suggest reading it first. Otherwise, some things won’t make sense. Wufei and Duo are dealing with the effects of their last mission together, the oddity of a new relationship, and the threat that the war will separate them any minute.

Maldoror_Chant

Freeport, Chapter 11

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12654255/chapters/29222340

2x5. long ass fic ahoy, socio-politics, with violence and hot guys, Blood and Violence, no EW, Slow Burn, Case Fic

Freeport colony: a notorious den of pirates, smugglers and thieves. Wufei persuades one of its denizens, his one-time ally Duo, to help him catch a killer hiding there. Agent Chang thinks he knows what to expect from this case, from Freeport and from Duo Maxwell. He couldn't be more wrong.

The Source of all Things, Chapter 12

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12121344/chapters/29139225

3x4, eventual 2x5, eventual 1x2x5. Science Fiction, Fantasy, Plot Twists, fairly graphic depiction of sex, Mild description of self-harm, Mathematical Magic, weird science, crones - Freeform, Magic and Technology brawling and eventually screwing, Eventual Threesome, Kinda, Insanity of arcane origin, The universe is a pile of marbles and other dubious allegories

Center, a planet where magic and technology blend. Or more accurately, fight tooth and nail. A planet of Sources, holes in our boring dimension letting through arcane power, chaos and pseudo-deities. In this hot-house of myths and very real dangers, Trowa and Quatre find a mysterious man at the end of a shamanic voyage. Portents suggest this Heero Yuy is crucial to Center’s survival. He’s important enough to have some interesting enemies after him, at any rate: a devious killer and thief called ‘Shinigami’, and a very irate Dragon. Beyond them looms an even greater threat. Indeed, the greatest of them all.

50 Ways to Leave Your Lover

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12771627/chapters/29140038

1x2, fluff and humor, post canon, slightly stalkerish Relena, get together

Duo was well placed to know that Heero was a deadly cold hard-ass ex-terrorist with an attitude, so really, how hard could it be to have a girl not fall for the prickly bastard?Answer: Pretty damn difficult, actually.

@noirangetrois

Of the Sea

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12749670/chapters/29199138

1x2, 4xC, Aro!Trowa, otp, Yaoi, Eventual Smut, fairytale my way, mermaid!au, Meroctopus!Dorothy

Heero Yuy will soon be reaching the age of majority, at which time he will ascend the throne of Wingaria. Before such time, he must needs choose a bride. But what if there are no good choices? What if someone else has captured his heart?

@remsyk-blog

Queen’s Pleasure

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12823785

2x5xR, Smut, to the nth degree, Threesome, PWP, NSFW, This relationship tag doesn't exist, Bossy!Relena, Car Sex, Technically Limo

Charity balls have a way of pushing Relena to her limits. Luckily, she has her soldiers to help her unwind, and whatever the Queen wants, the Queen gets.

Signifying_nothing

A Room in Luxembourg

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12788985

OT5

soft, introspective duo, Post Warcoming home, wound mentions, Acid Burns, Scalping, Disabled Character (not sure that really applies but just in case)

Let it never be said that Duo Maxwell did not understand tragedy. His entire fucking life had been a tragedy, thank you very much: could have been written by the Willy Shakes himself. Boy is an orphan, boy is taken in by a church, boy is brought back to the church several times, boy tries to save church only to have church blown up by The Man, boy becomes vigilante God of Death, et fin.

Sinspiration

Not Just a Vacation, Chapter 6

http://archiveofourown.org/works/11512800/chapters/29262546

5xOC, 1x2, 1x2x5, Threesome - M/M/M, Sexual Assault, that's the OMC part, Slow Burn, the embryonic stages of a relationship, this is being unburied and reposted, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Heero Yuy

Duo and Heero have to go undercover at a private high school to get close to the son of Archie Bravewater, a man who might have major ties to an underground slave-ring the Preventors have been trying to destroy for months.They're expecting Trowa to be their third and back-up reserve. But something comes up in Australia that he can't leave. They get Wufei instead.During the course of the mission the three not only navigate their assignment, but their developing friendships and, eventually, even deeper feelings.

Sunhawk16 (Mod note: YES THIS IS THE INFAMOUS SUNHAWK)

The Last Godchild

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12826722

1x2, 3x4, 5xS

The final part of the GodChild universe. The title, I think says it all. Death fic, but not in a sad way, I don't think. Christmas fic for 2016, originally posted in Livejournal.

Sylvieforaday

They Say it was a Concussion, Chapter 13

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12347688/chapters/29122869

2x6. AU. Surgeon Zechs. Dancer Duo.

Duo takes a spill and Zechs is just what the doctor ordered.

Moving On, Chapter 5

http://archiveofourown.org/works/12529256/chapters/29185731

2x5. Angst, Hurt/Comfort, eventual smut, mention of past sexual abuse, past character death

Duo is trying to find his place in his own world without his crutch - Heero Yuy.

TheManwell

May Demons Rest, Chapter 37 and 38 (Now Complete!)

http://archiveofourown.org/works/10944786/chapters/29218944

2x3, post-canon, bad language, underage drinking, suicidal thoughts

A re-write of my 2004 fanfic "Shinigami Sleeps" - To find and free Duo from his demons, Trowa leaves his uneventful life at the circus for the mean streets of an obscure colony in L2.

@vegalume

Afterthoughts of Discourse, Chapter 9

http://archiveofourown.org/works/4095778/chapters/29229750

1x2, 2xH, 1xOC, Rated for non-graphic adult situations, and language. Please pay attention to the tags and warnings posted. Yaoi, Het, ooc, Angst, Mpreg

After making a terrible mistake, Duo must now search for the one person he loves most, in hopes of gaining forgiveness. But when they are reunited will Duo be too late?

Snippets

@gw-ficrecfriday

https://gw-ficrecfriday.tumblr.com/post/167671703046/oh-hey-i-made-myself-do-something

@lifeaftermeteor

https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/167886171231/winner-family-compound-l4-v05001-207-september-15

@softnocturne

https://softnocturne.tumblr.com/post/167678682350/sunday-snippet

@vegalume

http://vegalume.tumblr.com/post/167869352305/snippet-saturday

Fanart

@anaranesindanarie

https://anaranesindanarie.tumblr.com/post/167703171204/for-those-curious-this-is-what-the-boys-currently

Dolldivine renditions of the pilots for her fic Magic, Mortals, and Gundam Gods

@downwarddnaspiral

@http://downwarddnaspiral.tumblr.com/post/167685943381/for-ahsimwithsake-and-laurathia-good-luck

Heero and Quatre, for @ahsimwithsake and @laurathia

@maevemauvaise

http://maevemauvaise.tumblr.com/post/167862882986/chronicwhimsy-a-very-very-happy-birthday-to-you

Duo as a merman for @chronicwhimsy‘s mermaid AU and birthday

@noelleian

http://noelleian.tumblr.com/post/167890294147/because-the-world-needs-more-pilots-drawn-as-cats

The pilots drawn as cats

@sawyer-sweet

https://sawyer-sweet.tumblr.com/post/167779922327/more-gundam-wing-fun-this-time-with-heero-yuy-at

Heero, injured

@sovaz

https://sovaz.tumblr.com/post/167752416995/for-chronicwhimsy-happy-birthday

2x5 Birthday gift art for @chronicwhimsy

@thelaughingstar

http://thelaughingstar.tumblr.com/post/167677965409/wufeis-voice-was-low-and-gentle-as-he-spoke

Fanart for @chronicwhimsy‘s fic Spirits. 2x5. Ghost Meilan

@vegalume

http://vegalume.tumblr.com/post/167620583265/this-didnt-turn-out-like-i-had-planned-and-no

13x1, vaguely NSFWish

@zer0-system

https://zer0-system.tumblr.com/post/167680438035/a-little-preview-of-what-ive-been-doing-all-this

Heero, injured

Meta/Headcanons

Gundam Wing Podcast featuring @lelola http://lelola.tumblr.com/post/167842591475/so-my-friend-jesse-over-at-the-zannen-canada

Gundam Wing social media accounts by @lifeaftermeteor https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/167681255679/what-did-i-do-instead-of-writing-for

Thoughts on Relena and her adopted father by @lelola http://lelola.tumblr.com/post/167877077840/im-curious-re-how-relenas-adoptive-father-is

Heero headcanon by @lifeaftermeteor https://lifeaftermeteor.tumblr.com/post/167851094207

Gundam Wing pictures with Invader Zim quotes by @vegalume

http://vegalume.tumblr.com/post/167803721820/gundam-wing-pics-with-invader-zim-quotes-this-is

http://vegalume.tumblr.com/post/167864844340/vegalume-gundam-wing-pics-with-invader-zim-quotes

http://vegalume.tumblr.com/post/167829189530/gundam-wing-pics-with-invader-zim-quotes-set-3

http://vegalume.tumblr.com/post/167855601155/gundam-wing-pics-with-invader-zip-quotes-set-4

http://vegalume.tumblr.com/post/167876283740/gundam-wing-pics-with-invader-zim-quotes-set-5

Meta on the pilots and close range killing, initiated by @the-indomitable-bhg https://noirangetrois.tumblr.com/post/167819314177/the-indomitable-bhg-gundamwing-ellesmith

Meta on the pilots and drinking, initiated by @fadedsepiascribbles https://fadedsepiascribbles.tumblr.com/post/167815528842/okay-but-ive-never-understood-this-idea-that

Meta on Wufei’s motivations for Endless Waltz, initiated by @lelola https://noirangetrois.tumblr.com/post/167776717587/lelola-wu-fei-is-so-done-with-everyone-he

I honestly don’t know what to even say about this. Gundams and babies and how Wufei entered the world and some disturbing cakes https://the-indomitable-bhg.tumblr.com/post/167761431722/lbro009-helmistress-the-indomitable-bhg

Discussion of canon support for a 1x3 ship, by @cinderellaincombatboots https://the-indomitable-bhg.tumblr.com/post/167760960457/cinderellaincombatboots-bro-fist-01-and-03

Headcanon for why Wing Zero has wings by @the-indomitable-bhg https://the-indomitable-bhg.tumblr.com/post/167682256482/the-notorious-bhg-wing-zero-appears-endless

Meta/headcanon regarding Wufei’s motivations and thoughts on using mobile suits in war, initiated by @noirangetrois https://gw-ficrecfriday.tumblr.com/post/167702938041/claraxbarton-cosmostar-noirangetrois

Meta/headcanon regarding Duo and Hilde’s relationship and colony life outside of war https://kangofu-cb.tumblr.com/post/167685479167/simulacraryn-kangofu-cb-noirangetrois

White Fang as a whole, by @lelola http://lelola.tumblr.com/post/167886567426/in-my-opinion-white-fang-makes-zero-sense-as-a

Thoughts on Ground Zero by @lbro009 https://lbro009.tumblr.com/post/167883479695/ground-zero-manga-ramble

Calendar Events

Unnatural November by @gwblockparty

Ending November 30th

A fanworks celebration of all things weird and supernatural.

Participation information here!

AO3 collection here!

Eve War Event by @gw-evewar

Posting December 23rd - December 24th.

A fanworks Science Fiction event.

Participation information here!

Cocktail Friday by @thisweekingundamevents

Prompts post every Monday, submissions to be posted the following Friday from 3-5pm EST

Fun, open participation

Fics, ficlets, art, anything at all welcome!

Gundam Wing Secret Santa Exchange by @gwsecretsantaexchange

All assignments are out!

Remember to keep your recipient a secret!

Gifts should be posted and tagged December 20th - 24th

If you need to drop out for any reason (life happens!) please let the Secret Santa blog know as soon as possible!

#this week in gundam wing #november 19 - 26th

34 notes · View notes

gratuitii-blog · 7 years

Text

support + dialogue analysis headcanons.

this is going to be a headcanon post directly analyzing her in-game dialogue, specifically her support dialogue. i will be referring to both localization and original japanese dialogue in my analysis. some things to note,

1. although i have a lot of credentials in japanese, to the extent that i am somewhat fluent in the language, i am no way an official source and i may make mistakes so if i do, please forgive me.

2. these are my personal take on faye as a character and are no way intending to be claimed as canon.

3. although alm is a lot of her dialogue, most of her in game speech is directed at alm, and not a lot else, i will not see it as her entire character representation since she hardly gets any dialogue in the first place.

faye & emotions.

this has been stated in my bio, but i would like to bring it up in more depth, faye experiences a wider range of emotions, allowing her to feel more extreme emotions than what would be normal for a human being. due to this, her feelings can get amplified if the situation is right, causing her to be rather unaware of some extreme things that she may say.

although she is brutally honest with how she feels, the things she says doesn’t necessarily reflect her actual feelings (eg. silque and faye) and realizes to some extent that her selfish actions create real consequences that she takes responsibility to amend if need be (still being rather honest about her feelings without sugar coating them, in silque’s case)

her heart is in a good place but her lack of control over her extreme and intense emotions can cause jealously and cause her to say rude things though, i don’t believe that she means them wholeheartedly (eg. her comment on celica, saying that she would never treat alm like that feels more that she’s upset that celica wouldn’t look at his side of things, and a mix of frustration for alm’s sake and a little jealousy comes out, though i don’t feel it was meant to purposely jab celica) as alm brings out a lot of intense emotions from her.

faye & alm.

faye’s relationship with alm is something that is very hard for me to pinpoint, for one-- i do believe to some extent that her feelings have reason, though i will admit that i’m not as happy with the idea of her life revolving around him. alm is an incredibly big part of her life, seeing him as a shining light in her life and idealizing him extensively. she admires his courage and strength, showing his dependability even as a child, pushed faye to want to become stronger like him.

she puts a lot of ideals and vitures in alm, which are a lot of the cause for her intense love for him, along with her feelings amplifying such that could lead to her “obsessive” behavior over him, though nothing more than intense feelings. even though she thinks about him a lot, she does not/rarely crosses the point of invading his personal boundaries.

due to faye’s selfless nature, and her want to do anything she can for alm, puts her into a position where her feelings become almost one with how she perceives that alm is doing. although there are times where she may say selfish things, she doesn’t do such out of malice towards others ( lack of control on her emotions, especially very strong and amplified ones.)

her supports with alm in the localization feel a bit over the top to me. take for example her c support,

エフィ：ねえ、私が敵をたくさん倒したら、アルム嬉しい？アルム：えっ？うーん、嬉しいとは思わないけど　助かる・・・かな。エフィ：そうなんだ。じゃあ、やっぱりたくさん倒したほうがいいよね。わかった！私、がんばるからね。アルム：うん、気をつけて。

which roughly translates to

faye: hey, if i defeat a lot of enemies, will you be happy? alm: eh? um... i don’t want you to think i’d be happy... but it’d help... i guess. faye: is that so. as i thought it’d be best to defeat lots of enemies. understood! i’ll do my best then. alm: yea, be careful.

compared to the localization,

faye: now, shall i head back out there and slay more of your enemies for you?! alm: slay...enemies for me? um... er, I would hope you're doing it for a better reason than just...me. faye: oh! is THAT what you want? ...because i'll do it. i'll fight for any cause you desire! just promise you'll be watching, alm! promise to look at me! alm: faye, i... look, just please be careful, all right?

although faye generally misses alm’s point in both conversations, i don’t feel that faye is as forceful in the japanese context of the games. it’s the same for her b support as well, the localization comes off as a lot more extreme in emotions, but in both cases-- faye lets her emotions take control of her words and actions, i believe strongly enough that she doesn’t have a lot of control, and can get very overstimulated with emotions being around alm due to her intense feelings of what i consider “puppy love”.

even though she idealizes the idea of her dream ( going back to ram village, and living a quiet peaceful life with him ) she is very down to earth, knowing that such is out of her reach, and in alm’s a support with her, she states this clearly. (though admittingly in the japanese version she doesn’t state that she was hoping that they’d find something together, and just states that ‘after this is over, they’ll part ways’)

eventually i feel that to some extent, faye would be able to learn to handle such intense emotions in a more healthy way, knowing that her feelings are unrequited, though she would most likely struggle with such continuously-- but joining the deliverance was also a journey for her as well, getting out of her comfort zone and opening her heart to new people that don’t revolve around alm.

faye & silque.

faye and silque is the only time that we get to see faye interact as a proper support with someone that isn’t alm. although their relationship seems rather rocky at first, it honestly shows how poorly faye seems to fair with new relationships. though it seems that she brings up that ‘its not alm’ in her conversations, i think that there is also a sense of unease when it comes to silque. faye doesn’t seem to interact a lot with lukas and silque seems to be primarily the outsider that has interest in talking with her, growing up in a village that was rather stoic, a tight knit community that she was comfortable with-- which makes her rather off put (but not against) silque interacting with her.

joining the deliverance is the first time she’s actively put out of her comfort zone, with people from different backgrounds meshing with her own, and willingly throwing herself out of her comfort zone to protect the people she cares for. it’s emotionally draining on her and frankly a relatively new experience. She is rather direct towards silque’s advances in trying to talk to each other, and i think in the japanese it’s a little nicer approach,

エフィ：えっと・・・、楽しくはないよ。だって、アルムがいないもん。もういいよ。私に構わないで。

translating to something like,

faye: um... it wouldn’t be fun. after all, alm isn’t here. it’s ok, please don’t mind me.

compared to the localization,

faye: talking about alm isn't fun unless alm himself is there. look, it's okay. not everyone has to be friends, right?

her words in japanese seem less harsh than the localization but she does state that she doesn’t want to be bothered by silque because of her wanting to have girls talk/gossip, making a statement to be left alone consequentially puts her in a position where the weight of her words do not carry the exact meaning and her opposition to socializing with others outside her group that she is comfortable with ends up coming back and biting her, having time to realize that she did enjoy silque’s company, but the lack of it made her realize her misjudgment and even admits to her selfishness.

faye & the villagers + celica.

although this is the most vague part of the entire post since there is very little to no interaction between faye and the rest of the villagers outside of the prologue and the very beginning of chapter 1, i do believe that faye also has a good relationship with each of the villagers, and cares about them a fair amount-- just as alm. she also cares about celica, as shown if you decide to recruit her on celica’s route, she is shown to be more than happy to see celica back around the village. although she may hold a little jealousy towards celica, i feel that faye has a good grasp on the fact that alm and celica have feelings towards each other in canon, and with alm’s support shown that she respects both of their feelings, even if she may not personally enjoy it.

this was really long and i spent over 6 hours writing and revising this, so i really hope that if you made it this far, it gives you a better understanding how i see and interpret faye’s dialogue and action in game, and try to give more depth to her character that i already love.

#♡ headcanon ;#{BANGS ON TUMBLRS DOOR HEWWO??? WET ME POWST}#{tumblr wont let me post this please work}

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syncogon · 7 years

Text

Some Chinese Cartoons

[Disclaimer: this was addressed to one specific person. I’ll make a better post one day.]

One day I’ll add pics and make this actually formal and stuff. But for now...

我为歌狂/Music Up:

Summary: Two musically talented, insanely popular high school guys - but that’s about all they have in common. In fact, they hate each other’s guts. And yet, through complicated circumstances, they and two others join to form a four-man band, “OPEN.” Both individually and as a band, they face a variety of problems: financial, academic, familial, romantic, and everything in between, in order to pursue their dreams. (52 eps)

Commentary: This is set in modern(ish) day, real world. Made in 2001, so keep that mind when considering the animation quality. They do have a lot of good songs, since this IS a show about singers and pop bands. Overall the tone is pretty light. Some things are a lot more dramatic than they need to be but that’s fantastic. And a lot of the problems are highly relatable. Development of characters and relationships is def one of the selling points. HUGELY nostalgic for me and a lot of Chinese people it seems haha

Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLkMLYnt73g the second opening.

战龙四驱/Go For Speed:

Summary: Two years ago, the genius high schooler Fei won the minicar (4WD) racing Nationals. But only shortly afterward, he disappeared, with only a short note hinting at why. Now, his younger brother Dragon follows in his footsteps, designing and creating his own minicars to compete in the tournaments and steadily working his way up through the rankings. Along the way, he meets many people, makes friends and enemies, and struggles to find Fei and his reason for leaving. (64 eps)

Commentary: Modern/slightly future-day, real world (Shanghai!!). Okay so this show is based around like the gimmick of “minicar racing” - not sure what to really call it. The races are surprisingly fun to watch actually imo, with the technological abilities of the minicars, interactions between players, and obstacles to pass... but you’d probably have to decide that for yourself. For me, the biggest draw was probably the surprising number of subplots, which explore the complex relationships between all the characters - literally every single side character is well established and developed. Family and familial relationships play a pretty big role. Revenge and forgiveness are there too. I got hooked into this show when it was airing on TV solely because of one character haha. Caveat that it starts slow, I don’t know how much you’d actually like this, there needs to be some suspension of disbelief, and the animation quality isn’t fantastic… rip

Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0tHRbyaek&index=30&list=PLQukwpGC9a0wfDv0ymEgGX-LydTKbZY_s (a trailer, in english for some reason even though i’ve never found an english dubbed version of this and don’t want to. It mostly focuses on the racing aspect, but as before, don’t let that fool you, it’s surprisingly deep. Come for the races, stay for the chars)

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQukwpGC9a0zqrmIGCXOW1QVlfh6svY7y since when was this on youtube?? :o WAIT HOLY SHIT SINCE WHEN DOES THIS HAVE ENGLISH SUBS THIS IS A GAME CHANGER AAAAA NOW LIKE I MIGHT GO REWATCH THIS - just kidding, only the first episode. Man what a letdown

弹珠传说/Danzhu Legend:

Summary: This is a world where people have Danzhu battles: competitions involving channeling your magic energy into Shooters to launch marble-like Danzhu at targets. These objects have great power, but, so far, no one has decided to take advantage of it… until now. One day, a young boy who has always dreamed of becoming a Danzhu battler is chosen by one of the five Legendary Shooters. He journeys into the mountains to seek training from the Danzhu Master, where he meets the other four Legendary wielders and learns that their job is to stop the evil threatening to take over their world. (52 eps)

Commentary: Fantasy world. So this is like your pretty standard “boy discovers power and works to save the world” story, but still enjoyable in its own right. The gimmick of this are the aforementioned Danzhu. The Guardians are also very important; all Shooters are linked to a spiritual animal/creature/something that’s the basis of power. The battles are all very cool! Quick disclaimer: for various reasons I am more familiar with this show than maybe any other of the ones here. This fact made me appreciate how much potential this story had, but also made me realize all of its flaws. There are a lot of things it could have done better - character development jumps to mind, because aside from the MC and one of the antagonists, most of them don’t change all that much. Also there’s lots of recycled animation. Just keep these caveats in mind. However, I still found the adventure/plot/magic very exciting to watch, a healthy dose of idealism and humor as well as tension/smarts/raw courage, so if you’re interested in that aspect more, I’d recommend this!

Links: ALL THE EPISODES ARE ON YOUTUBE ONCE MORE PRAISE this is very helpful for me because when i needed them to be on youtube, someone had like taken all of them down, which was very upsetting, but now they are back again, glorious

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wvQUvsPwKA0&list=PLZKi4aAqJS8dbVOUrKnDqNU4F4rnm8Ott playlist isn’t in order but you should watch the opening theme to get a feel for it - if you want even more of a feel, watch to 4:50, which is kinda like a prologue and a better summary of what I said above lol

开心宝贝/Happy Heroes:

Summary: Just read what’s on tvtropes tbh haha (link below) (Ongoing, 10 seasons, 52 eps each (except season 8 which was 40 eps) )

Commentary: Imo the best seasons were 3, 5, 6, and 8. After 8 the animation style changed a bit and the humor quality kinda went down…well, that might just be me, though. Either way, though, there are so many amazing earlier episodes, and I’ve gotten really attached to all the characters. It being a kids show, there’s no super deep plot or lasting impact of anything (aside from the last arc of season 7, heh. I remember watching when it came out in 2014 and flipping out bc I did NOT expect that, knowing HH) but it’s still thoroughly enjoyable. There are also two movies: the second movie is kinda confusing and meh but the first movie is pretty good and I think you can find it on youtube. In fact I believe all the episodes are on youtube, but I imagine you have those links already

Links: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCKA3CuHXUxHflv9KAgEJyKQ is the channel with everything. Watch the trailer for season 8! It’s v epic and got me hyped when it released.

Tvtropes: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Animation/HappyHeroes

Movie 1: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jUiA3nue22Y. (there are english subs too! haha)

Movie 2 isn’t worth watching trust me

星游记/Rainbow Sea:

Summary: Years ago, a man dressed in all red made a declaration to the universe: behind the largest black hole was a mysterious place called Rainbow Sea, a place where any dream could be fulfilled. Enchanted by the stories, people from across the universe joined the man in red in his journey. Unfortunately, no one ever returned. Rainbow Sea was scoffed at as a myth and a lie. The man in red was cursed, nicknamed by people as the Red Demon. The sinister organization known as the Galactic Eyes quietly gained control of the Solar System and numerous other star systems, sealing off the planet where the Red Demon had come from, Earth, and forbidding any ships from entering or leaving. Now, ten years later, the Red Demon's son Maidang has reached adolescence and is determined to fulfill the pinky promise made to his father before he left: to reunite with him at Rainbow Sea.

Commentary: Quality stuff right here. Best part is the backstories of all these characters, there’s some really moving stuff. The characters are p great - Maidang is so inspiring, Gudong is highly relatable, Diya is awesome... The art style (esp for their eyes) is really nice. ...Not much else to say off the top of my head, esp since the story is far from over, but even if it starts off slow, this is definitely worth your time!

Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SiB_oZBdi7k&list=PLF068DA90359EDE0D all the episodes. The opening theme/sequence was what got me hooked, you should def watch it (up to like 1:20 or whatever, then if you want like a prologue watch to like 3:07)

26 eps so far. Season 2 and after are apparently going to be “web movies” instead of episodes, something like 60 minutes each, and will cost money (rip) but I’m sure they’ll show up for free somewhere eventually. Fingers crossed this’ll be soon. Wanna join me in hiatus hell :DD

神魄/Zinba:

Summary: Kan is happily chatting with his closest friend on an ordinary school day when, all of a sudden, he finds himself pulled into an alternate fantasy world. This world is filled with Zinba, large and powerful creatures that may form bonds with select humans, called Linkers, for immense battle power. After becoming a Linker with one of the strongest Zinba ever to exist, Kan joins the peacekeeping Dux force of the kingdom of Toria and fights against the various evils threatening the land, all while trying to find his way back to his own world. (52 eps)

Commentary: Okay, so you know, I wouldn’t recommend this as much as some of the others on this list, esp since it’s the most recent Chinese show I actually watched, but it made enough of an impact on me to have it worth talking about. I started watching bc a) it showed up as recommended for me on youtube, b) the opening is SICK as HECK, and c) the protag of this is voiced by the same person as the protag of DZL, and generally looks/acts kinda similar haha. Anyway, overall thoughts: basically, it had a lot of unrealized potential. The world and the character designs are AMAZING. I liked the animation. The plot is interesting, with a surprising number of plot twists as to who’s the real ultimate villain. But there could have been So Much More development – we could’ve gotten more thorough backstories for the main crew, for example, or seen more of the world/magic/tech, but instead a lot of the people as well as Zinba just… exist, as static and boring entities. There were like two interesting characters total (Kan’s aforementioned “normal” friend being one of them heh). Kan himself was suuuuper annoying, esp at the beginning. (can you tell I really appreciate/prioritize the characters of a show?) However, some moments were quite well done and epic, and I wrote some fanfiction and commentary on basically every episode, so it holds a place in my heart. Also, there is a full English dub lmaooo (the voices suck but the translations for names/places/etc are interesting) (episode 1 has 318k views??? That’s a TON for a chinese cartoon)

Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G83STZ9xcc the opening which is good and worth watching, https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQukwpGC9a0xatMI-KGO9SILZ5sSWfWXX full playlist, syncogon.tumblr.com/tagged/zinba lol

#mine #rainbow sea #zinba #music up #happy heroes #danzhu legend #go for speed

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