@Cloudenvy said:

@Video_Game_King said:

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

@evanbower: Sorry to disappoint, took me around 10 minutes to write it.

And now I feel bad about myself :(.

You should always, always feel bad about yourself!

It is fucking ON.

So much butthurt in these comments.

I'm the kind of guy who hates liquorice.

I used to be insecure about stuff like video games and music preferences but then I grew up and stopped caring. If you think about it, pretty much no one you meet is perfectly normal and perfectly bland. Nearly everyone has some unique qualities that might make them "wierd" if they advertised it in public. You dont need to worry about others opinion of your favorite pastime and at the same time you don't need to enforce that image of yourself. If you dress and act like a hipster gamer than people will of course pigeon hole you and it becomes your social identity. There is no reason to attract that much attention to yourself as an "oddity" because ultimately you dont want it.

Being different is not much of a badge of honor when people tend to be very unique and have refined tastes once you get below face value. Anyone who is going to judge you for something as inconsequential as playing video games who wants to be friends with anyways.

@TaliciaDragonsong: Hey, I'm only writing like a crazy person some of the time. Usually, I'm just too tired.

@BaconGames: Get in on this crazy gravy train of hyperverbal blogging and ride it into the glorious sunset, please! It's rare to see someone really delight in language, but you absolutely relish the language we all share. If we all become better writers, we force our audience to become better readers; this is the way in which we can elevate discourse, and this is the way in which the community can elevate itself. Keep on writing, friend, keep on writing.

@TaliciaDragonsong: Then I stand corrected. Looking forward to seeing some art from you.

Great write-up. Also, even though I'm a guy, those earrings are pretty sweet. I need them for the wife.

i like your earings. i think the headline thing is a cool thing.

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

@RedRavN: That's all true but easier said than done. I'm not actively enforcing anything because this is who I've been for years. But Im also learning to accept myself how I am more and more and realizing that, as you said, we're all unique and 'weird'. I found a lot of consolation on this site, from other artists/writers and in general a set of people that's often outside the main mass society. So in return I also try to show off its okay to be who you are and be passionate about your hobbies. For some it can be hard to realize that and I hope my writing gives them that nudge that I needed back then. But this was as much as peptalk for myself as it was for others! :P

Sure, I understand what you are getting at. However, one thing is you say you get consolation from artists and writers and people outside the main mass of society. I dont think there is a such thing as a main mass of society. You can have all the hobbies you like and enjoy the darkest and most subversive artwork and still be part of society. Unless you are willing to become a part of society I think people will feel outcasted. I think that unless you can accept other people you can never be truly accepted yourself. I try not to look at people with more average hobbies as seperate or different then myself. When I lost the distinction between all these percieved groups of people I realized I was ultimately just a normal guy and not some artist on some other level. So it has been good to be an artist and a video game player and also be just a normal average person in public.

Unfortunately, some people are just crazy and will be jerks about what they dont understand. It doesn't mean they represent a divergence in society or culture, just that they are a delusion individual. Like you say the best thing to do is be who you are and not worry about trying to fake being something your not. Anyways, I'm not trying to be critical of your writings im just trying to add to the discussion.

@Video_Game_King:

You bastard.

Everyone is a special little snowflake.

@TaliciaDragonsong: Funny seeing all the newbies give you flak for making a personal blog. So cute.

.

@BaconGames TacticalDragonsong is legit. She got gamer street cred. Yo?

(that's why most people here don't flip out at the female thing anymore)

Nice write up.

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

What makes me even more of a weird type is the time I spend in game's universes. Played one mission of Starcraft 2, spend the rest of the night reading the wiki/watching Starcraft videos. I know stuff about universes and games I never even touched but I have been wondered by their respective worlds. Their own little beings. I can appreciate franchises for just existing, without having even seen or played them.

I'm like this as well. There has been plenty of times where I have lost an entire night reading about a game's story or universe.

@Cloudenvy said:

@Video_Game_King:

You bastard.

I'm not really sure what I'm supposed to take away from this blog post, while I know it's not the intention, the theme of pretentiousness really puts me off enjoying this.

@TaliciaDragonsong: Yes, you being a girl makes me read themes differently. Haha, I don't know, I think it's more to do with people I know personally who write the most pretentious things, somewhat similar to this blog, even though they're not like that at all.

I don't mean to offend, I think you are a good writer, I'm just used to hearing your views from people with bullshit views.

Also using firefox & the images showed up fine. Plus nothing wrong with being weird in this kind of way, I've played enough games that there are some which give you a great summary of the universe/world it presents in one level early on as a hook to get people playing it but sometimes they can't quite keep it going in the writing/action leaving many people leaving the game before the ending. Also there's so many games that have hidden gems in there that people might not discover unless they do a bit of research or aimless wandering (some of the stuff hidden in Psychonauts still stands out to me as some of the more interesting hidden things in a game). Things like this show off the thoughts & character of some of the artists working on the game better than the standard generic stuff they work on in the game.

I was talking with friends who are also playing Guild Wars 2 about the world & just how freaking big it is along with how most of the towns/heart markers are still rather different from each other enough to give the world quite a life to it. Running through the Charr area definitely proved it where instead of just finding a bit of civilization not wanting me to kill wildlife or bandits, I find a small farm where you're racing against the clock to cheer up cows or a giant tower in the middle of nowhere with the guards occasionally plagued by flying cows.

I think right now the silly people who are saying they are done with it are in the pvp only mindset & they just don't play pve at all (glad I'm not one of those people).

@TaliciaDragonsong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_Pixie_Dream_Girl

@RazielCuts said:

@TaliciaDragonsong: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_Pixie_Dream_Girl

I read one of the quotes near the end of that page and thought, "That sounds exactly like something TaliciaDragonsong would say." I'm not sure if that's a good or bad thing.

@Brodehouse: That's one way to play with language, certainly, to communicate your meaning with the absolute highest efficacy. It's the path Hemingway took, and I'd never snipe at his style because I love it as much as the next person. But I disagree that vocabulary should only be used to instill clarity, mostly because we have such a extensive language filled with so many wonderful sounds. More importantly, if you dress up your language in that Hugo Boss three-piece hanging in your closet, some people joining the conversation will at least put their language in a collared shirt and necktie, and those steps of formality inherently increase the focus and respect of the conversation.

I'd continue, but I have to run, so I'll leave it at that.

I think we all get/got to that place where the people around us, or the people we choose to be around, are clearly into other things and it makes us feel weird. The truth is there are always people like us that enjoy similar things. I felt like that once, but the internet has changed a lot of things and made it easier to find like-minded people.

@McGhee said:

You remind me of my little sister who's ten years younger than me who wears mismatched clothes and has a Harry Potter tattoo all in the hope that someone, somewhere will notice her.

Kate Winslet's character Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) acknowledges and rejects this label, in a remark to Jim Carrey's Joel character: "Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours." 

@TaliciaDragonsong said: I'm that weird type of gal that ignores an entire soundtrack in favor of one of the first songs for the rest of the game. I'm not easily sold but I'm just that impressed with the feeling it gives me. Example here being this song from Borderlands 1, still stuck in my head after all this time, fighting off Rakks and Skags:

I played a total of 110 hours of Borderlands (1) and played my own music or podcasts via custom soundtrack the entire time. No regrets. I do that with 99% of the games I play, so subsequently there are games that I associate with songs/albums in my collection. That's probably weird.

Very interesting blog! We do all have things that define us. I, for example own a car but never use it. This is what I ride everywhere:

I ride my bike everywhere because I think it's incredibly fun. I also carry with me several Bird species guides because I'm an avid Bird watcher. Hobbies are what make you, you!

You are spot on about that borderlands 1 music, played through it again before 2 came out and has been stuck in my head all week. I get into some game fiction, depends if I find the universe compelling enough. I don't want to count the number of hours I spent reading codex entries in the Mass Effect games

Well, I guess I stand corrected.. again, the Images in your blog about artists,your image with a microphone.-- well I guess I was confused.. had me under the impression that you were one. We'll Ill give your other blogs a chance, as I do consider writing a skill, as long as the subject matter isn't more self affirmation.

and really I've read most if not all of the comments on this post, and I have yet to find a negative sounding comment that places your gender in any light. So I find it odd when you address peoples critical comments about your post. as. "They just annoyed because Im a girl and love games lol.." and brush it off.

you might as well say.. "UmadBro?" because both have the same amount of meaning, and worth. No one cares you are a girl that plays videos games.

@TaliciaDragonsong said:

I really love the quote near the end because its so true!

Kate Winslet's character Clementine in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) acknowledges and rejects this label, in a remark to Jim Carrey's Joel character: "Too many guys think I'm a concept, or I complete them, or I'm gonna make them alive. But I'm just a fucked-up girl who's lookin' for my own peace of mind; don't assign me yours."

And that's the quote I was talking about. Still not sure.

You remind me of my little sister who's ten years younger than me who wears mismatched clothes and has a Harry Potter tattoo all in the hope that someone, somewhere will notice her.

@McGhee said:

You remind me of my little sister who's ten years younger than me who wears mismatched clothes and has a Harry Potter tattoo all in the hope that someone, somewhere will notice her.

@TaliciaDragonsong I think you represented yourself well in this blog post. I got the sort of vibe that you were going after, and it didn't seem to me that it was not genuine. If there are people that want to say that it was pretentious, or that you were playing the "different to be different" card, then I guess that's the way they are going to see it. I don't think you were trying to be la-de-da just for the sake of that kind of writing. I don't know, am I wrong?

People proclaiming how crazy, unique, deep and passionate they are, tend to be the exact opposite. You come off very "young" in this post.

Cool earrings, though.

My Dad didn't pay much attention to me either...

@SharkEthic said:

People proclaiming how crazy, unique, deep and passionate they are, tend to be the exact opposite. You come off very "young" in this post.

Cool earrings, though.

I thought this too but then remembered it was a blog post. Blog posts can be for self-assertion if they want to, a forum post would of come more off as the above. A "Hey you guuuys, look how awesome I am" but nah, it's just a blog post.

This is still going? Nice

@IzzyGraze said:

@SharkEthic said:

People proclaiming how crazy, unique, deep and passionate they are, tend to be the exact opposite. You come off very "young" in this post.

Cool earrings, though.

I thought this too but then remembered it was a blog post. Blog posts can be for self-assertion if they want to, a forum post would of come more off as the above. A "Hey you guuuys, look how awesome I am" but nah, it's just a blog post.

I beg to differ, but considering your premise, I regret ever commenting in fear that it might be considered shitting on the OP. That wasn't my intention.

@TaliciaDragonsong: I'm happy you're happy, and you're a pretty decent writer, though I'm neither a potential reader or follower of yours, I'm afraid. The "age is just a number" argument seems reserved for teenagers and old people.

@TaliciaDragonsong: Are you kidding? I turned awesome. Hence the snappy avatar. I am literally overflowing with joy/happiness!