Hocus Pocus

Well, I suppose I'll separate my dreams into 3 separate categories. Obvious fantasy that will never happen unless something ground-breaking happens in how our reality works, semi-realistic fantasy which might be possible on a technical level....? maybe...? yet it's incredibly unlikely to happen even if it was, and realistic which can be attained reasonably with hard work and a bit of luck. Obvious fantasy: I'd like to be a superhero because why not. I want phenomenal psychic powers because chances are if you've heard of a superpower existing, someone out there has written a character with that power and explains it by saying "they're psychic"... I mean, Guldo can stop time, Rasputin can do just about anything from regeneration (if you can make it to a high enough level, anyway) to pyrokinesis to invisibility, mewtwo can fly, Yuri exhibits mind control... the list goes on. The only thing I can imagine that would be as versatile would be just straight up magic, in which case if that exists in this fantasy, I'd have no reason not to learn the heck out of it too! XD Pretty much what I'm saying is if there are no limits on life, I want to be a terrible DeviantArt Marry Sue OC now I just need a name as edgy as it is cringe inducing. .... or maybe I'll just settle for being a cat and not having to work anymore Semi-realistic fantasy: I want to go on some paranormal adventure and end up discovering something huge that defies all current scientific logic. There's a lot out there, and we haven't even nicked the iceberg in discovering how whatever our reality may be ticks. I want to have an adventure that drops a bombshell on our reality and opens up a whole new world of wonderful possibilities that should be totally impossible. Be it reliable psychic abilities or magic as stated earlier, or even something like the discovery of a stable and safe portal to another world. Realistic: A lot deeper than the childish desires of my fantasy...

marriage?!?! Why would I ever do that? I'm not really one for romance I just like being me

the fire has burned through almost 18,000 acres (17,859 for anyone wanting an exact number), over 700 buildings have been destroyed and 13 are confirmed dead with one of them being the result of a heart attack from smoke inhalation. Fires still haven't reached pigeon forge, and the fire in Gattlinburg has pretty much burned itself out with some assistance from mother nature herself sending 3 days of rain. Residents are being allowed a brief window of time to access their property and take what they can from their homes until December 6th when the mandatory evac will resume to prevent accidents from weakened structures. Things are looking a lot better than they did when I made this post, but if it hadn't been for the rain, who knows what could have happened.

That sounds pretty grizzly... I don't know if I'd have the stomach for a job like that. Still, I'm glad you're helping the people out, I mean, someone has to do it. We cannot revive the dead, but with body retrieval, at least you can give the families closure.

Indeed I do.... But it doesn't stop death from scaring the heck out of me, maybe I just don't want to get old and ugly.

I decided to make this thread because for whatever reason, nobody is talking about it. I've seen maybe 2 news articles on it so far while not actively searching for it (which is very small compared to all the other things such as political articles still floating around as leftovers from the election), although a google search reveals plenty more... Perhaps it's still just too recent..? For those that may not know, there is a massive wildfire going on in Tennessee right now. At the time of this posting, the fire has overwhelmed Gatlinburg as the fire department ran out of resources and had to let the city go, and Dollywood as well as Pigeon Forge look like they're going to go the same way. Evacuations had been issued long ago, but my prayers still go out to the families of those effected... Especially to the campers and hikers that may not have gotten the evac notice. (Pics under spoiler tab) Stay safe, everyone. Let's all hope the trauma caused by this crisis is as diminutive as it can possibly be, and if you know anybody out there fighting the fire right now, they're an honest to God hero.

I stumbled across a forum website a couple weeks ago for a cult following the work of a schizophrenic mathematician ... That was one heckuva trip down the rabbit hole.

The tedium of the game to me is what makes it great... It is not supposed to be fun, it is supposed to be oppressive, with hopeless and inevitable death always looming. It's kinda like Darkest Dungeon in a way. The whole game is very "two steps forwards,one step back" until you can finally beat it. And I can't tell you why I enjoy such macabre settings so much, constantly reminding you of life's frailty, assaulting you from every angle with hopelessness, reminding you with game mechanics designed to be unfair that when push comes to shove, there are too many things in life that you have little to absolutely no control over. Maybe I'm just depressed and I feel that on some level or another, the game "gets" me by bringing up these dark topics, by ripping you out of the glorified hero role and putting you in the role of a normal person experiencing tragedy, because sometimes that's what life is: a tragedy... Or maybe I'm just a little bit screwy and need to get to bed That being said, it is completely logical to call a game that is not supposed to be fun bad, so I can totally understand your point of view (Also, on the note of the inverted song of time, its usefulness depends on what version of the game you're playing, as it doesn't slow time nearly as much on the 3DS and may actually cause you to time-out in the middle of a dungeon unless you're already familiar with it, especially if you're trying to hunt the fairies along the way in the later dungeons like the water temple or stone tower temple... But hey, at least you can pick the exact hour you want to skip to with the song of double-time, right?)

A darn good opening for a darn good show

I don't really like Trump, but this really needed to be said. People are treating him like the devil without even looking into his political choices and policies, and once you do, they're nothing absolutely bat guano insane.

There are a multitude of reasons people might not be able to get into emotional situations in media. As an amateur writer (I've done some stuff for D&D with my friends) I make sure to check off three specific factors to ensure my audience feels what I am trying to convey,it's just my personal style. 1.) The audience must feel an attachment to the character experiencing the trauma. In my D&D writing, this is the easiest part if the character having a hard time is a PC since the audience themselves are quite literally a part of that character, if it is in a game, however, this may be more difficult, as the audience is forced to play as a character they did not have total control over. In a way, they are simply "borrowing" your character, so you have to make sure that your audience can relate to them, many techniques to perform this task include dialogue trees, customizable characters, and branching story paths to make it feel like you have an impact on what your character is going through (with the exception of the Stanley Parable... which uses branching story paths to make you start forming that emotional attachment to the story, only to tear it away when it reminds you that it's all a game, and none of the choices are really yours, but only the things the programmer allows you to do.); but if it is an NPC or a character in a book, movie, or show, it can be a little harder to form an attachment to something you have no control over. In this case, you must at least at first, introduce the characters with a problem that everyone can relate to, or a personality that everyone defaults to feelings of joy with. This is why the characters that people often love the most are characters like those form the persona series, who all have very real issues that almost everyone have faced at one time or another, from choosing a path in life that you might not enjoy only because you feel like everyone expects you to, to struggling with sexual identity, or from the latter option, Toriel from Undertale was designed to have the personality of a mother, a figure which most people could never bring themselves to foster any negative feelings towards due to childhood nostalgia of simper times. 2.) The audience must have an interest in the story at hand: If nobody cares about the story, or if the story becomes too convoluted, the audience will not feel anything but confusion or boredom whenever anything that is supposed to be emotional happens. Think about the really dry books you were forced to read in school... Did you really care when Cardboard personality #12 whom was apparently the protagonist's great uncle or something kicked the bucket? Of course not! The story sopped making sense a long time ago, and it stopped being interesting a looooong time ago. If anything you're happy that he's dead because if they kill off all the characters, then the story will finally end already. 3.) The audience must understand the gravity of the situation. It's the reason that villains monologue so much. If the bad guy is just some schmoe who's gonna nuke the world, then he just seems like another boss to kill for exp... Let's take a look at Undertale once again.... Also, spoilers, so be careful. I'll still try to make it vague as possible. If you die to a random monster, the same event will happen as if you die to king Asgore... But of course the final fight with Asgore is gonna feel more epic!The mood was set properly. Monsters tell you why they have been trying to hunt you down as you walk through the halls of the castle, until at last, you meet the king himself, who seems sad... Perhaps lonely even, as he leads you to the barrier. He gains a defeated expression as he reluctantly fights you, unable to even look you in the eyes... Then let's compare this to the genocide run even, where the fight with Undyne overshadows the fight with Asgore. If the proper party wins, you're still looking at the same occurrence, the destruction of humanity, yet the amazing speech Undine gives before going absolutely bonkers in difficulty and the concentrated amounts of determination she gives off far surpasses even the grande feel of the fight with king Asgore. A lack of any of these points can ruin an emotional scene for the audience. Using your FF7 reference, we have a character who's personality is predetermined, even in the dialogue choices we're given. And although we can name them whatever we want, we all know he has a cannonical name of "Cloud", so it is not easy to relate to the character in personality. second, the plot of FF7 is notoriously confusing... To the point where Starbomb even wrote a song about it... So we cannot really relate to the emotion there either. The third point, however, FF7 nails pretty well in my opinion. The flower girl is your only hope of defeating Seph- oh.... Oh ..... OH! Welp, time for plan B! But without the first two points being met, many people find a disconnect from the story that prevents them from being moved by such plot twists. Even if the urgency of a situation is spelled out for them, they find it hard to get into because they cannot immerse themselves in the characters or story. It'd be like someone randomly coming up to you and saying "I heard there was a fire here once" compared to actually being in a burning building. You don't really get the same effect.

INFJ Although, I don't really seem to fit the description of it... I'd much rather use D&D's 9 alignment system to say I'm "Lawful Neutral" because I feel that explains my personality better than the Myers Briggs personalities