Daily Prompt Response: Eye of the Beholder

 

This is a rather hard one for me to write on. Throughout my entire life, art hasn’t really affected me. I just can’t connect. The few that I can, I find myself pondering it, which is a good thing, but I don’t see the beauty of the piece. The impact of the piece is more of how difficult it might or might not have been for the artist. I see the days, weeks, and months that the artist took on the piece. I think of the difficulty levels, the brush strokes, the shapes, the inspirations, the emotions, everything that the casual observer might not see. I never see the piece. I see the artist. I guess that’s more of an uplifting way of seeing it, but sometimes I’d just like to look at the piece and say, “Wow, that’s really beautiful.”

There is one form of art that I react to the piece. I have seen those that didn’t see it as art, but I find these people to be very misinformed on this matter. Classical music. However, I can’t listen to it on an iPod or from the internet. Speakers and headphones, no matter the quality, just don’t carry the same weight. To hear a full concert band in person, to be awash in the tender embrace of those warm vibrations, is heavenly. People talk about how they feel their music, but they talk about how they feel it in their hips or their feet. Classical music… I feel it all over. I can pick out the trumpets, the flutes, the clarinets, and even the gut-moving bass of the tuba line. I played tuba in marching band, and hearing the movement of the tuba line can almost bring a tear to my eye. Find me weird or strange if you’d like, but that’s just how I am, and it’s what I enjoy.

Daily Prompt Reply: On the Road

 

It may be a bit selfish, but the family that I would stay with while real life was paused would be one of the families in the Medieval reenactment towns where they live there indefinitely. It would be mainly to serve a purpose, though. I’ve always wanted to be a blacksmith, but lacked any way to pick up the trade. I have watched good smiths at work, and I find the methodical, rhythmic clanging of steel against steel to be therapeutic. The physical activity in itself would be needed, as well. I’ve been a bit of a lump on a log here at home. I would just want to live with the smith’s family in this town and learn as much of the trade as I could.

Some of you might ask yourselves, “Why not just live with the Amish?” Well, that’s a complicated question. While they are a bit more lenient about modern technology, if only barely, the cons would outweigh the pros. I’m not Christian, which would earn me their distrust and resent, along with the frustration it would cause me. Also, their behavioral code is far more strict than I think I could take. While I am a bit of a discipline freak, I don’t really know their etiquette. I would be in a constant state of paranoia that I might do or say something wrong. Meanwhile, I know much more about ancient history, and I could easily live alongside those in a Medieval reenactment village. It would take me a day or two to learn customs, seeing as I already know most of them. Past that, life is life. It would be nice to learn smithing, even if I only get to do it as a hobby.

Daily Prompt Reply: Cleaning House

 

Reading today’s prompt, I felt like they were talking about more than simple cleaning. “Garbage in your life,” seems more like how you deal with things on a daily basis, so you are going to get an insight into this not-so-humble blogger.

I am much more sensitive to things than I would give myself credit for. In fact, everyone in my life piles garbage onto me daily. It’s not a matter of if someone hurts me or not. It’s a matter of who hurts me less than others. As I think about it, I feel like most people are like this, though I may just be completely wrong. It’s hard to tell with these things. Some people are far more self aware than others. Because of this, even people that do feel the same way that I do might not even know it due to a lack of exploration into their own subconscious. It’s food for thought and fuel for irritation.

Considering my sensitive nature, you would think that I might be completely introverted and a bit of a hermit. While I can be a bit of a hermit due to my borderline obsession with video games once I get into one, I am actually quite an extrovert most of the time. However, I don’t really throw this garbage out on the “cleaning day.” Instead, I take a page out of every child’s book who sweeps their stuff under the bed. I shove everything that I can into the basement, using excuses to myself as the broom. That doesn’t make me bitter, although others might tell you differently. These excuses range from, “They didn’t really mean it. I just took it the wrong way,” to, “I can’t really do anything about it. I just need to not worry about it.”

I will most definitely elaborate on this in future posts under my own topic. If I put it all into one post, this would be long enough to be a college research project.

Roleplaying Example: Dragon Age

As you read more of my random thoughts, you’ll see that I’m an avid roleplayer. Anything from Dungeons & Dragons to cosplay to improvised roleplay with video games. Lately, there has been more of my last example. I haven’t gotten to get out that much, so a D&D group or cosplaying isn’t really going to happen. I do have a D&D group, but we only meet every other week. I guess that I could cosplay at home, but be honest with me on this. That is just a little pathetic. I could work on cosplay outfits if I had the money for materials, but I don’t. So I’ve had to utilize video games as much as possible. It’s much easier than you think if you can simply forget the world for a time and put yourself into your character. Of course, this can be difficult in and of itself. A good game for this is Dragon Age: Origins. Dragon Age: Origins is a better option for this than Dragon Age II simply for the matter that in Dragon Age II gives you very limited speech options. Where as in the first, they gave you a variety of options and allowed you to take them how you liked, in the sequel you were given three options that were listed as Good, Evil, or Joking. Occasionally, you would be given extra options to acquire extra knowledge or ask the opinion of party members. Even if you could get past the “Good, Evil, Neutral” stereotype that labeled the options, the reactions of those you are speaking to only match that stereotype, no matter how you try to look at it. It’s just a much more simplified version that makes roleplay much less of an option. Add onto that the fact that they gave way from their attempt at animation to a much more “anime” inspired approach, and I see Dragon Age II as a very poor choice, anyway. 

On to my main point, though, sometimes you just feel like making yourself as a character and seeing what you would do in the predicaments that the game puts you in. For some people, this is all that they ever do. If you are used to roleplaying defined characters, exploring what you would realistically doing can sometimes open up options and avenues that you may never have had in the past. For me, however, it is difficult to do this with many fantasy games, and I’ll be using Dragon Age: Origins as my example. In this game, you can be a warrior, a mage, or a rogue. This basic class system is very accessible and easy to expand upon. However, this in itself is difficult for me. I could be the warrior, seeing my love of melee combat and enjoyment of the sport of it. I also like to defend others, and find a thrill in letting all that energy out. However, I also have the creativity and intellect to be a mage. I love to acquire new knowledge and figure out how things work. And come on. Who doesn’t want to hurl a fireball or two? I could also be the rogue because I like to show some fancy footwork, and I tend to evade until I can find an opening. I prefer to stay light so that I can move freely and not need to shrug off hits. I have some gift with two weapons, and I also love to practice archery. Plus, the ability to kick someone in the crotch as a Rogue in this game is more than worth it. However, there are just as many counter arguments for each one. For a warrior, I am a bit of a pacifist, and I can panic when overwhelmed. For a mage, I am a bit more sturdy than these squishy, support characters, and I love charging in far too much to stand back and cast spells.  For a Rogue, I am a bit more brutish than this finesse class, and I like to get the attention of my opponent far to much to repeatedly backstab. These are only a few of the counterpoints.

As if this didn’t make it difficult enough, there are specializations that you can receive as you level up. As a Warrior, you can be a Champion, a Templar, a Reaver, or a Berserker. The Champion is as much support as anything, shouting in combat and overpowering enemies to inspire allies. Templars are pure, anti-magic. They were obviously an attempt to make a Paladin that wasn’t a Paladin. The fact that they use some amount of magic as a Warrior is also somewhat enticing. A Reaver is really a sort of masochist. As they become more heavily injured, they dish out more punishment. This would be enticing if they weren’t obsessed with the sight of their own blood. Finally, a Berserker is a warrior that uses their anger to fight. The concept would be my first choice, but this is the most ramshackled specialization in the whole game, next to Arcane Warrior for the mages. Their abilities are combinations of things that the Warrior has anyway and Reaver abilities, with the best ability being nothing more than a big hit that castrates you for using up all of your stamina. That might be useful if the ratio for damage was better, but it isn’t worth it.

For Mages, you can be a Spirit Healer, a Shapeshifter, an Arcane Warrior, or a Blood Mage. A Spirit Healer is nothing more than its name. The ability to heal party members without this specializations is next to impossible, but once you take this specialization, you’ll find yourself putting every bit of effort and advancement that you get toward healing until eventually you aren’t even a combatant anymore. Also, they came up with a weak attempt for backstory based on a shift knowledge of the Dragon Age mythos. Shapeshifters are also just what their name suggests. They take on the shapes of particularly dangerous animals for combat. Without the meat and bones behind it, this might be a much less popular specialization, since it is based on the abilities of the game’s single most popular NPC party member, Morrigan. Other than that, the Shapeshifter is a way to successfully make a Mage a front-line combatant that can adapt to different situations. However, it seems that every magical opponent that you find has a strange, innate ability to change you back to your standard shape, which wipes you out, especially if you are in melee already. Also, you almost have to abandon your standard Mage stats for it so that you can be that combatant. Ultimately, it’s only useful half the time because of the Mage NPC auto-change to revert your form. Arcane Warriors are a jurry rigged attempt at combining Mages and Warriors. Sure, you gain the ability to use your Magic in place of Strength to use weapons and armor, but there is an inherent glitch in the PS3 version (which I have). It never switches the damage ratio to your Magic stat like it’s supposed to. It also doesn’t transfer over the hit chance to the Magic stat. So unless you are willing to balance everything between Strength, Constitution, Dexterity, Magic, and Willpower, it’s useless. I don’t know if this is different on other platforms, as I have never used this specialization on PC. Also, if you want to cast spells while using weapons, forget it. Your character puts away their weapon(s), casts the spell, and then draws them again. By that time, the opening you saw for the spell has already passed, and you have been hit about 8 times by whatever you’re fighting. Since the Magic stat replacement doesn’t count for Dexterity, it doesn’t work for ranged weapons like bows and crossbows, so I don’t see why you would castrate yourself in melee like that. It’s a cool concept, and the meat behind it is awesome, but the execution is atrocious. I tried playing it through with this monstrosity, but at higher levels you become nothing more than an escort target, hard to kill but dishing out no damage whatsoever and being more of a hindrance than a help. Finally, there is the Blood Mage. Possibly the coolest specialization in the game due to the mythos behind it, but sorely lacking in execution (seemingly a theme among the Mage specializations). The first two abilities that you get damage you and your allies, making them useless in this game where health is at a premium in combat, and you are often starving for health potions if you are playing on anything but Easy or Casual. Because of this, it’s not even useful until higher levels and will waste two of your skill points to get the better skills later on. The last ones are Blood Wound and Blood Control. Blood Wound does massive damage to anything that isn’t undead or demonic. Blood Control makes an enemy your ally for a disappointingly short time and does massive damage. Sadly, you will find yourself fighting things without blood just as often as you do things with blood, so this is once again only useful about half the time. Anything from undead of any kind to demons to possessed items to freaking trees are immune. Sometimes the game confuses spiders and deepstalkers for not having blood, too, so it’s hit and miss with them. Mage is good if you want to really interact with the mythos, but the specializations need a full overhaul. I get the feeling that they said, “Ok, we need some useful specializations for the Mages fast. What can we work up?”

For Rogues, you can be an Assassin, a Bard, a Duelist, or a Ranger. Assassins aren’t what you would think. They simply apply debuffs and bonuses to backstab without any true backstory or meat to it. The Bard applies buffs to allies and themselves but can’t do much while using these abilities. Thankfully the common backstory of Bards being entertainers makes up for any inconveniences. The Duelist class was a way to make Rogues a viable, front-line combatant, and this is evident in the descriptions of their abilities and stat changes. However, the backstory of them is more than worth it, and their abilities are very worth of, ranging from buffing yourself to debuffing opponents to big hits. However, they hold to their name. If they are outnumbered, they are at a disadvantage. The Ranger is possibly the only option in the game to get pets. You can summon animals for aid, mainly, and that in itself is pretty swanky. However, this class comes without any backstory whatsoever, no explanation of how you got your abilities, or any work to achieve this knowledge. It’s just there for those that want it.

With all the specializations, it gets harder. I could be a Berserker, a Reaver, a Champion, a Shapeshifter, an Arcane Warrior, a Blood Mage, a Duelist, a Ranger, or a Bard. If I really take the time to rule things out, I could still be the Berserker, the Champion, the Shapshifter, the Arcane Warrior, the Bard, or the Duelist. This completely mucks up my early gameplay as I wonder if I made the right choice. Later on, I see things that I would answer differently as different classes, and it makes my current character feel obsolete. The roleplaying isn’t quite the issue most of the time. I guess that I’m just indecisive at times.

Daily Prompt Reply: Standstill

This prompt didn’t define how long time would stand still to allow me to tweak something, so I’ll have to give two answers. My first would be if the case was that time was to stand still indefinitely while I tweaked one thing. This would be what I would prefer, but also the less likely. I would find my way to the Carolina Powerball Lottery building, which would be an impressive task since I don’t even know where that is. Assuming that computers would also be frozen, I hope that my metabolism froze as well. My search would take months of real time, and I would fear that if I ate anything, that would count as my tweak. Once I finally found and reached my destination, I would look at the jackpot numbers and copy them down. That would be assuming that picking up a pencil wouldn’t be a tweak either, that writing wouldn’t be a tweak, and that you could write while time were frozen. After time started again, I would buy the lottery ticket and give the winnings to my father, who is in dire straits at the moment. It’s shocking how one tweak depends on so many smaller things, and how one tweak requires many smaller tweaks. I mean, even if you’re just pulling someone’s pants down in public, you are unbuckling their belt (if they are wearing one), unbuttoning their pants, unzipping their pants, pulling their pants down, and pulling their underwear down. That’s five, less dramatic tweaks that all might count. It’s food for thought. Now, should the standstill only be momentary for a tweak, which may be the case, the options would be far fewer in number. Honestly, at that point you only have time to do one thing without consequence. Of course, if you murdered someone and you were the only one awake at the time, you would still suffer consequences. You couldn’t even steal something. Your fingerprints would still be there, and it might be deduced that it was you. Taking all this into consideration, your options would be very limited. You would barely have time to leave the house, much less go to any length to get somewhere. You would have the time to do something that you could do otherwise without being seen or heard. Anything on a large scale, ranging from theft to murder, that would warrant close attention would still get you caught. With that short amount of time, there would be nothing that I would want to change. Everything that I would want to do would require some amount of time, or leaving no trace. I would probably sit and wait it out. Considering the fact that currently I am sitting at home, the only person awake in a dark room, I probably wouldn’t even be aware that time had stopped. Time feels as though it has stopped to me as it is. Add to that the fact that I have no bearing on the concept of time, and I would completely miss that momentary opportunity. It was an interesting thing to ponder, though.

Daily Prompt Reply

 

So we’re supposed to write about something that we’d like, which is a dangerous subject with me. There are many things that I like, but that list involves everything from the perfect pen to actually being able to be violent without getting in legal trouble. Sadly, most of the things that I want are whimsy or impossible. Of course, nothing is impossible, but these are things that would be about as close as one could get. Honestly, what I’d like the most right now is a job. It’s really more of a necessity than a want, but I believe that it counts. There are many positions open near here, but sadly a smooth-talker without much “handyman” experience isn’t really what they are looking for. I applied for a lumberyard, and when I heard that they didn’t even consider me, the thought just turned up that I’d get fired anyway. Someone would run to the manager screaming, “He tried to hit me with the forklift!” Of course, it would have been an incompetent accident…. Most likely, at least. I would greatly enjoy a job where I could cook, but I’m keeping my job search wide open.

What is a Good Bit of Theater Without an Introduction?

You’re probably asking yourself why this is called “Random Access Theater.” Well, you may have met people where you never knew what they were going to say. You may have thought that the things they spurted out to come out of thin air, and you may have noticed that they had a constant stream of thought going the whole time, and you just got random bits of access to it now and then. To them, it seemed very interesting in their heads, but without the context, it just didn’t make as much sense. After that, they took the time to try and explain it most likely, but it really never came together. Well, I am that kind of person, but I will attempt to explain things as they come. You should be able to understand it, or at least be able to get some level of entertainment out of some of it. Sometimes I’ll post pictures, others I’ll post links, and sometimes I’ll just ramble on like this with a point at some point among the haystack of eclectic thoughts. Please, do enjoy my ruminations.