Mary_Contrary_006

I'd appreciate your help in choosing a name.

This takes place in a world that has magic, but the magic is quite understated. The world has the tone of a cold war spy thriller, but there is something strange about how classic and highly dramatic tropes can be recognized when viewed from a broad distance. The country of Arcland is a conservative constitutional monarchy. Their FBI and CIA have been trying to track down a provocateur group. They later discover that this group is largely, if not entirely, composed of one man with the ability to shapeshift or otherwise mimic people perfectly. The protagonist "Belle" is an agent deployed in the hunt for codename "Beast."

He is later identified. S

I'd appreciate your help in choosing a name.

This takes place in a world that has magic, but the magic is quite understated. The world has the tone of a cold war spy thriller, but there is something strange about how classic and highly dramatic tropes can be recognized when viewed from a broad distance. The country of Arcland is a conservative constitutional monarchy. Their FBI and CIA have been trying to track down a provocateur group. They later discover that this group is largely, if not entirely, composed of one man with the ability to shapeshift or otherwise mimic people perfectly. The protagonist "Belle" is an agent deployed in the hunt for codename "Beast."

He is later iden

It felt like an epiphany to me, so I felt like sharing.

I've complained before that Dracula felt strange to me.
He was a warlord who never wanted to lose, so he became a creature that could never lose, well adapted to war. Then, for some reason, he went off to feed on foreign women. I assumed this was a reflection of the fears of the day, the fear of foreigners coming to take our women. That could be a terrifying thought, but it seems a misaligned and trite interest for a warlord.

I've recently come to think of Dracula differently.
He is not a warlord. He is evil. Being a warlord is incidental, and war is merely a convenient conduit for him to enact his evil. What is war,

From what I understand , Xcom is slowed down by my mods. I tried to lose any mods as I was willing, but even if the campaign starts fast and normal, it quickly slows down to uncomfortable jagged lagginess before I kill the first Chosen.

Could this ever be helped by waiting a few years and getting a more powerful PC, or is this just a choke in how the game is made, regardless of how powerful a PC might be?

What do you like to talk about? Politics and current events? Science and theoretical stuff? Abstract ideas? Creative critiques?
When it comes to drama, I obviously hate it, but I try to placate and mirror, give the speaker what they want to hear. If nothing else, I recognize gossip as survival tool. 

I like to ask people about their lives. Are you ready to die? What are your next goals? What do you fear most? Why do you love your wife? 

I went to college for Game Design. But something happened and I was kicked out of college. People tell me all sorts of optimistic platitudes about how if I keep working, I can become a game designer anyway, but I have to turn to survival, immediate money, with no credentials or contacts. 

What are your jobs? If you look up INTJ jobs, suggestions are Doctor, Lawyer, Scientist, and Accountant. I have no interest in these things, much less the credentials. What do you recommend for INTJs with no credentials? I'll try to get credentials, of course. 

I wonder how well I would do as a personal assistant of some sort. I might have to work on some social skills, but otherwise, I have alway

How do you feel about PTSD depictions? What would you like to see? 

Now that PTSD has entered the mainstream vernacular, it has become watered down, like everything else, like other psychological conditions. In media, it's thrown onto characters like a sticker from a character customization Build a Bear workshop. I'm tired of seeing shallow PTSD portrayals that are treated with such reverence, as if these portrayals were so profound and sensitive. 
Nightmares of perfect memories that cause a person to sit up straight. 
Panic attacks that devolve into sympathetic pitiable breakdowns.

Well, all of those are true. What do I really expect or want? Maybe the trouble isn't the portra

I often go on long hiatuses and only just returned again.
I primarily play Eclipse Protocol. Was there an update that made it so you only see status effect icons after having aimed your weapon at an enemy?

It used to be that I could foam the entire crowd and see everyone highlighted and see how long the foam would last. Now, I foam them, they don’t have icons above their heads, and I can only watch their faint shapes to see how long they are stuck.

The phrase PTSD conjures images of people shaking in fear. I suppose this isn't untrue, but part of the greater umbrella of fear response; fight or flight and all that. I don't know, I was just reading a lot of posts of people being afraid. Does anyone seem to have trouble with aggression? Are you responding to your overly developed fears and paranoias with aggression and control? I still get anxious around people, crowds, sunlight, stressful scenarios. But when I am faced with stress, I don't have a problem getting through it, but maybe I'm not completely free from erosion. In my head, I'm never afraid, because no matter what comes, I'll kill it. I can kill all my problems. Enemies? Kil

I used to have Hypervigilance. I would try to close my eyes and shut out all the noise and ignore threats, but that would just heighten the paranoia. Then someone would tap something or say my name and I would jump. Someone would touch my arm and I would shout, "Jesus Christ" and raise my fist. 

But now I have the opposite problem. If there's an emergency, people cry and panic, but I walk slowly. Or if it's my job to respond to the emergency, I'll jump to the problem and seek the excitement. If a dog is biting my hand, I'll let it bite it, curious of how it feels, what it's doing. If a man is driving towards me trying to scare me, I'll stand there lazily, daring him, instead of doing th

All your life, you second guess yourself and beat yourself up and think yourself stupid. Everyone else is somehow stupider and keeps telling you how smart you are, but you tell yourself that it's just that people are different and you don't know what other people are. 

Finally, a surge of events confirming your intelligence happen and it breaks the dam. You truly are smarter than everyone else. There is no pride involved, or you suppress it. It's just an unfortunate fact that you deal with. But you try to accept it and trust yourself. 

And the you look like Homer Simpson. Apparently second guessing yourself was what made you seem smart. 

How often do you feel this?

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