Hanako's Broken Heart Club

[ArazelEternal]

I suppose your right. Maybe I do pity o hat myself but ive done it for so long its hard to get out of it. I guess Ill just have to take the lessons learned in the game to heart.

[Alexbond45]

I suppose your right. Maybe I do pity o hat myself but ive done it for so long its hard to get out of it. I guess Ill just have to take the lessons learned in the game to heart.

There is no reason to hate yourself, Mistakes are part of life, right?

[ArazelEternal]

I suppose your right. Maybe I do pity o hat myself but ive done it for so long its hard to get out of it. I guess Ill just have to take the lessons learned in the game to heart.

There is no reason to hate yourself, Mistakes are part of life, right?

I suppose. However some mistakes stay with you for life. It is not so easy as to just say shit happens, get over it though I sincerely wish it was. Anyway I appreciate your responses to my posts.

[WorldlyWiseman]

I suppose your right. Maybe I do pity o hat myself but ive done it for so long its hard to get out of it. I guess Ill just have to take the lessons learned in the game to heart.

There is no reason to hate yourself, Mistakes are part of life, right?

I suppose. However some mistakes stay with you for life. It is not so easy as to just say shit happens, get over it though I sincerely wish it was. Anyway I appreciate your responses to my posts.

Where do you live? Quite a few American cities cities (especially college towns) have really cheap therapists-in-training. I pay $15 a session for my individual therapist and $5 for a group session through a city-run organization, which is far cheaper than anything I could find through Google. The therapists involved are often students, yeah, but they are usually good enough to help with basic talk therapy. If you don't like the person you're set up with, getting a different one is little hassle. It's helped me develop a little distance with some of my more hurtful memories (suicidal girlfriend, mutually manipulative relationships, remember). A side benefit of therapists-in-training is that they cannot prescribe medication, which was important for me because I had picked up society's notion that mental health professionals existed only to push drugs into you.
Try to find your city's municipal website and click around to see what you can find.

It's been said here that the past is the past and so on, but let me put it more bluntly and less cliche: the past literally does not exist. The research has been coming in for years now and Wired just did a piece on possible memory modification (a month ago? two months? note sure). My point is that memories, and by extension every expectation we've ever had for ourselves and those expectations set by others, are not permanent records. They are like rows upon rows of little cups of water, rippling and changing and becoming less pure every time we touch them. This is why talk therapy works; you bring up a memory as objectively as possible, and over time the emotional impact of it lessens.

Which brings me to my next point; Anyone that tells you that your problems do not matter because someone somewhere is suffering more is an asshole. They are trying to shut you down so that they can go back to talking about themselves. Yeah, you shouldn't prioritize your problems if there is something you can actually do to help someone who is hungry or in pain, but a person telling you that you are less legitimate because you live in relative comfort and does nothing themselves about the problem they just brought up is a fool you can do without. This kind of thinking leads to people bottling up their problems, which only swirls all those little bowls of water around and sloshes them into each other until you don't know what you feel anymore. It's a miserable existence.
The quote in my sig is relevant here; the more we make a struggle out of happiness and self-worth, the more that struggle defines who we are. We never reach the door out of the struggle because the struggle is what we want if we lack the ability to conceive of other possibilities. Be your Emiest
As for actually helping the unfortunate yourself, volunteering is definitely a good thing. Just be sure to find something you can emotionally handle if you're not sure you're up to it. I can ladle out soup to the homeless, by my humor is too dark to volunteer at a nursing home

Wrapping this up on a high note; games! Quitting games cold turkey is tough and slightly unreasonable. Playing a good game is like little else, especially if you've been doing it a long time. Read up on game design and learn to become choosy about what you play. More and more games are adding in obnoxious grinding and leveling elements that only serve to make the game take longer with less actual content. Avoid grindfests, avoid games that go in realtime to keep you coming back (like Farmville). Learn to be a snob. Check out indie titles that are only fifteen minutes long and pack in clever mechanics. I like rogue-likes in particular. They're good for an RPG fix because the instant-restart-upon-death means that the stakes are always high and the games can't afford to pack in obnoxious cutscenes. The gameplay is usually highly tactical and based more on game elements having interesting interactions than on mashing X. I play for an hour and I get one crappy round, one round ending in hilarious death, and another round where I get overwhelmed by a massive wave of ogres, but I've made it further than before and that's enough good gaming for one night. Then I can shut the game off, read a book, and feel smug that I yet again saved myself $60 AND avoided having to deal with a moronic C-movie plot for 30 hours.
All those people getting upset about Mass Effect 3? I can just brush them off because I didn't get emotionally attached to it.

[Alexbond45]

On another note on Video Games: STRATEGY! Strategy games ALWAYS change, there is never any true grind, because ANYTHING can happen at ANY MOMENT. No 2 Battles are ever teh same, which is why I love my Total War/Starcraft games!
The only MMO I play is Team Fortress II, Because it is also an unpredictable game, anything can happen at any moment, and there is no grinding IMO (Though, you can argue that there IS, I don't grind, I have all the stuff I could ever want!)

[ArazelEternal]

Where do you live? Quite a few American cities cities (especially college towns) have really cheap therapists-in-training. I pay $15 a session for my individual therapist and $5 for a group session through a city-run organization, which is far cheaper than anything I could find through Google. The therapists involved are often students, yeah, but they are usually good enough to help with basic talk therapy. If you don't like the person you're set up with, getting a different one is little hassle. It's helped me develop a little distance with some of my more hurtful memories (suicidal girlfriend, mutually manipulative relationships, remember). A side benefit of therapists-in-training is that they cannot prescribe medication, which was important for me because I had picked up society's notion that mental health professionals existed only to push drugs into you.
Try to find your city's municipal website and click around to see what you can find.

It's been said here that the past is the past and so on, but let me put it more bluntly and less cliche: the past literally does not exist. The research has been coming in for years now and Wired just did a piece on possible memory modification (a month ago? two months? note sure). My point is that memories, and by extension every expectation we've ever had for ourselves and those expectations set by others, are not permanent records. They are like rows upon rows of little cups of water, rippling and changing and becoming less pure every time we touch them. This is why talk therapy works; you bring up a memory as objectively as possible, and over time the emotional impact of it lessens.

Which brings me to my next point; Anyone that tells you that your problems do not matter because someone somewhere is suffering more is an asshole. They are trying to shut you down so that they can go back to talking about themselves. Yeah, you shouldn't prioritize your problems if there is something you can actually do to help someone who is hungry or in pain, but a person telling you that you are less legitimate because you live in relative comfort and does nothing themselves about the problem they just brought up is a fool you can do without. This kind of thinking leads to people bottling up their problems, which only swirls all those little bowls of water around and sloshes them into each other until you don't know what you feel anymore. It's a miserable existence.
The quote in my sig is relevant here; the more we make a struggle out of happiness and self-worth, the more that struggle defines who we are. We never reach the door out of the struggle because the struggle is what we want if we lack the ability to conceive of other possibilities. Be your Emiest
As for actually helping the unfortunate yourself, volunteering is definitely a good thing. Just be sure to find something you can emotionally handle if you're not sure you're up to it. I can ladle out soup to the homeless, by my humor is too dark to volunteer at a nursing home

Wrapping this up on a high note; games! Quitting games cold turkey is tough and slightly unreasonable. Playing a good game is like little else, especially if you've been doing it a long time. Read up on game design and learn to become choosy about what you play. More and more games are adding in obnoxious grinding and leveling elements that only serve to make the game take longer with less actual content. Avoid grindfests, avoid games that go in realtime to keep you coming back (like Farmville). Learn to be a snob. Check out indie titles that are only fifteen minutes long and pack in clever mechanics. I like rogue-likes in particular. They're good for an RPG fix because the instant-restart-upon-death means that the stakes are always high and the games can't afford to pack in obnoxious cutscenes. The gameplay is usually highly tactical and based more on game elements having interesting interactions than on mashing X. I play for an hour and I get one crappy round, one round ending in hilarious death, and another round where I get overwhelmed by a massive wave of ogres, but I've made it further than before and that's enough good gaming for one night. Then I can shut the game off, read a book, and feel smug that I yet again saved myself $60 AND avoided having to deal with a moronic C-movie plot for 30 hours.
All those people getting upset about Mass Effect 3? I can just brush them off because I didn't get emotionally attached to it.

Thank you for your reply and your advice. Ill have to read it a time or two to get it all down, but thanks anyway. Maybe thats my problem. Ive been bottling myself up or so long that Ive just become numb. Its what Ive learned to do my while life, and unfortunately as a result, Im very good at doing it and making it unknown.

[WorldlyWiseman]

On another note on Video Games: STRATEGY! Strategy games ALWAYS change, there is never any true grind, because ANYTHING can happen at ANY MOMENT. No 2 Battles are ever teh same, which is why I love my Total War/Starcraft games!
The only MMO I play is Team Fortress II, Because it is also an unpredictable game, anything can happen at any moment, and there is no grinding IMO (Though, you can argue that there IS, I don't grind, I have all the stuff I could ever want!)

This is true, but the average playthrough of a strategy game can take hours, days if the game is especially deep. The goal I'm recommending reaching for is maximum depth and catharsis in minimum time, to free up time for other hobbies. I guess a strategy fix could be had with play-by-post games like http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/01/03/solium-infernum-the-complete-battle-for-hell/. They are turn-based, and the multiplayer is done like chess-by-mail, sending whatever moves you make to your opponent to respond to in their own time. A good game can stretch for days, waiting for your next turn to come up, making your move carefully, and then back to doing whatever else you like.

On a personal note, I detest TF2's crafting system. It makes absolutely no sense. Shouldn't they have a quartermaster to get them new equipment? It's the perfect example of the manipulative crap being added to maximize player time being spent on the same content.

[Alexbond45]

I always preferred Real Time Strategy over turn based, because you can be focused on one objective, and then SURPRISE! The Enemy is at your back lines!

The TF2 Crafting system is stupid, which is why I just let my friend do It, Usually though, I use stock weapons, with a few exceptions.

Oh, and my friend got me a strange Medigun and a Strange Syringe gun.

[WorldlyWiseman]

I always preferred Real Time Strategy over turn based, because you can be focused on one objective, and then SURPRISE! The Enemy is at your back lines!

The TF2 Crafting system is stupid, which is why I just let my friend do It, Usually though, I use stock weapons, with a few exceptions.

Oh, and my friend got me a strange Medigun and a Strange Syringe gun.

It's a matter of taste here. I tend to stick to turn-based because not playing games so often has led to my hand-eye coordination going waaaay down. I don't know if that experience would be universal.

Yeah, we're getting off-topic.

[Exbando]

About a year and half ago, I got the free ten day trial for WoW. After the ten days, I had four characters to level 20 (the level cap for the trial). I decided that I shouldn't play this game, because it would be all I ever did.

LunarKnite - I'm about you're age and having the same problem with trying to figure out what to do with my life. I always wanted to get into game design, but I can't find the motivation to do anything in my game design classes. My dad says that I should go into engineering, since I'm apparently pretty good at math, but math has always bored me. It comes easy to me, and I guess I prefer having a challenge, or something like that. Now I feel like maybe I should go into reviewing video games, since I play them all the freaking time, but I don't know, I've never been able to write things very well

Sorry for bothering you guys and my probably bad style of writing.

Just wanted to pull this out real quick. You're not bothering anyone by coming here, and your style of writing doesn't matter, it's not like you're posting a fanfic or something.

Sorry I haven't been posting lately. I'd like to say that homework keeps me busy, but as I said before, I have a lack of motivation to do it. I think I can blame it on replaying the Spyro series, and reading Hunger Games.

EDIT: Oh yeah, and happy Easter to those who celebrate it

[LunarKnite]

About the whole games subject, I definitely have plans to lessen my playing time of online games. It kinda bums me out that I paid a lot of money for a Free to Play game and consider not playing it, which is the main reason I don't think I can ever just quit the game altogether. I had my stints with other online games, WoW and others, but I never kept going back to them like I do with League of Legends. *shrugs*

Exbando - It's kinda relieving to see someone near my age wondering what to do; it seems most people around me have got it figured out already. But game design, huh? That's been something I've been considering. I'm not sure being a full-fledged author is for me, but I think I would enjoy being a script writer or something along those lines for a game. Maybe we could team up since you don't seem to like writing much. I find things are easier to work on when someone else is expecting something from you and vice versa.

[WorldlyWiseman]

About a year and half ago, I got the free ten day trial for WoW. After the ten days, I had four characters to level 20 (the level cap for the trial). I decided that I shouldn't play this game, because it would be all I ever did.

LunarKnite - I'm about you're age and having the same problem with trying to figure out what to do with my life. I always wanted to get into game design, but I can't find the motivation to do anything in my game design classes. My dad says that I should go into engineering, since I'm apparently pretty good at math, but math has always bored me. It comes easy to me, and I guess I prefer having a challenge, or something like that. Now I feel like maybe I should go into reviewing video games, since I play them all the freaking time, but I don't know, I've never been able to write things very well

Video game journalism is a dead end. Google around. You're either making chump change (if any at all) writing for a small hobby blog and hoping to get noticed, or making below-journalism-standard money writing reviews (that your boss will demand you softball to keep advertising dollars) for a major gaming publication. The only real ladder upward seems to be trying to get your contacts inside of various companies to get you a job making games.

By all accounts, it's a miserable industry wracked with a deep envy of the people they write about. A bit like celebrity tabloid journalism. Or political journalism. Come to think of it, why would someone want to become a journalist in this day and age?!

I'm not in the games industry itself, but all of the news coming out of it tells of un-unionized developers being abused by their corporate overlords.

Engineering isn't a bad field. My dad was a metallurgical engineer. He was not an especially clever or creative person, but he did get to solve a lot of interesting problems during his day job. He made good money while I was growing up. There's nothing saying you can't go into engineering and use game design as a creative outlet.

Thank you for your reply and your advice. Ill have to read it a time or two to get it all down, but thanks anyway. Maybe thats my problem. Ive been bottling myself up or so long that Ive just become numb. Its what Ive learned to do my while life, and unfortunately as a result, Im very good at doing it and making it unknown.

No problem, Just get some help, work on breaking the big vague problem down into tiny bits. Then stomp those bits!

[Beoran]

WorldyWiseman,

It's not a bad idea to make developing/designing games a hobby and something else your main job. Just look at KS itself. It's a game that /cannot/ exist as a commercial game. It could only have been created because it was an earnest, noncommercial creation. I'm a normal programmer for my job, and one of my hobbies is game programming (though very slowly, I must admit).

As for having many problems, it's like that "big mountain of laundry" story scene in fruits basket, you have to deal with the problems right ahead of you, "close to your feet" first. In other words, forget what you can't do, focus on what you can do, on the part of the problem you can solve.

[Alexbond45]

WorldyWiseman,

It's not a bad idea to make developing/designing games a hobby and something else your main job. Just look at KS itself. It's a game that /cannot/ exist as a commercial game. It could only have been created because it was an earnest, noncommercial creation. I'm a normal programmer for my job, and one of my hobbies is game programming (though very slowly, I must admit).

As for having many problems, it's like that "big mountain of laundry" story scene in fruits basket, you have to deal with the problems right ahead of you, "close to your feet" first. In other words, forget what you can't do, focus on what you can do, on the part of the problem you can solve.

I can barely program either, I'm learning Python, so I can make a mod to Civilization IV.
If I did, I would still be plagued with the inability to Draw/Model/Skin!

Maybe we could get a team together? Make our own game! :p

[ArazelEternal]

No problem, Just get some help, work on breaking the big vague problem down into tiny bits. Then stomp those bits!

Maybe I should do that. The stomping would help blow off some steam, lol. Unfortunately, Im very much like Emi in the fact that I believe I need to get over my problems on my own, with no one elses help.