Monday, May 7, 2012

Tropes Analysis: My RPG Characters

Rebecca:
AKA Lightning Struck Candle. Dawn Caste Solar in the Viva La Vida Exalted Game.
  • Action Girl: Rebecca is a strong combatant
  • Martial Pacifist: Rebecca prefers to talk first, but she will fight if necessary. And believe me, it often is.
    • Good Is Not Soft: And when she does fight, she will kill if she has to, even though she hates it.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Rebecca is 6'3 and appearance 5 (the highest you can get in exalted without supernatural assistance)
  • Bifauxnen: Generally wears men's clothes and binds her breasts (for combat practicality, not to pass as another gender).
  • Deadpan Snarker: She often uses Sarcasm to as a coping mechanism in tense situations.
  • The Captain: Became this once they got a ship
  • The Ladette: Debatable example. She is sexually active and generally the initiating partner, uses foul language frequently, and loves to devour roast-beef sandwiches, and caries her self in a fairly masculine manner. But she is also sexually and personally responsible and actually believes in love and romance.
  • Morality Chain: Rebecca is this for Graveflower and used to be it for Sorrow.
  • Loved I Not Honor More: Rebecca loves her various love interests, and greatly cares for them, but her first duty is to creation to the point that if she has to kill them (because they jumped off the slippery slope and decided to try and kill everyone), she would, although she would greatly regret it).
  • BFS: Fights using a Grand Daiklaive. The blade itself is six foot. 
  • Bi The Way: Rebecca has had sex and romance with both men and women.
  • Chronic Hero Syndrome: Rebecca goes around helping people as much as she can.


 Millie
AKA Captain Milicent "Millie" Davis. Allied soldier fighting Nazi Zombies.
  • Plucky Girl: Oh so much. Not only does Millie has a will of iron (to the point that not even dying could stop her), she remains hopeful throughout.
  • Hope Bringer: Millie's optimism is contagious, to the point where it got her command of her own special unit in England.
  • Waif Fu: Although Millie generally uses a pistol, her unarmed combat (which she is capable of) tends to look like this as she is five foot nothing and 90 pounds.
    • Dance Battler: Millie learned the dexterity she uses in combat from ballet.
  • Pettanko: Millie is not well endowed.
  • The Captain: Millie was promoted to Captain and given command of her own unit shortly into her tour in England (after her success in Russia and an unintentionally well timed Hope Bringer comment)
  • Sweet Polly Oliver: Sort of. By the time she actually made it to the field, everyone knew she was a girl, but she did disguise herself as her brother to get past the recruiter. In a slight subversion of the usual trope her being discovered wasn't that big a deal as the army was just that desperate.
  • The Medic: After it was discovered that she was a girl, the army gave her some medical training. Although she wasn't her squad's primary medic, she was often the one in the field with them, rather than back at their base.
    • Combat Medic: She also had quite a bit of combat training.
  • Action Girl: Millie is also a good fighter.
Miranda
Half-Tiefling trying to prevent genocide on her race.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Miranda doesn't believe that fighting has rules. The rule is to survive. She is willing to use pretty much whatever it takes to win (short of things like harming innocents). She applies this philosophy to war as much as personal fights.
  • Guile Hero: This is probably the best way to sum up how Miranda fights, although sometimes she is strangely straightforward--such as flat out telling the third party in the war that she is giving them territory to establish a buffer between tiefling territory and the territory of the people trying to kill them.
    • This opposes the leader of the faction trying to kill her faction, as he thinks he is an Action Hero, although he's much more like a combination of Hitler and Roman Emperor Nero. Before she discovered what his faction was trying to do and joined the tieflings, he tried to give her a combat training scenario (basically capture the flag). He did this by "killing" all of the soldiers portraying the opposing forces. When Miranda tried to get in by pretending to be a girl stuck out in the rain (as they had never seen her before), he lambasted her for "Lacking Killer Instinct." She proved him wrong when at the end of the game, she shot him in the face.
  • Moe: Invoked by Miranda. She uses this as part of her Combat Pragmatism. It's much harder to kill an underage looking girl with a stutter, and much easier to let her into their base. That said, all of those traits are genuine, she just uses them to her advantage.
  • Older Than They Look: Miranda looks underage, but she's actually about 19. She's just very malnourished, growing up in a fantasy analogue to post WWI Germany
  • Hooker With A Heart Of Gold: Because she didn't have any other resources, she used to trade sex for food to feed the children at the orphanage she grew up in. The "alliances" she made there actually made it easier for her to make allies for the Tieflings.
  • Orphanage Of Love: Where she grew up

Sarai
Part angel healer in the No Children Vorseus D&D game.
  • White Magician Girl:  Sarai focused more on healing and protecting the party. She was "Laser Cleric" build.
  • Morality Chain: She was basically this for her boyfriend Nick (a very conflicted necromancer), and sometimes the entire party.
  • Actual Pacifist: She wants to be this so much, and often manages, but sometimes it's just not possible.

    Tuesday, April 24, 2012

    My Goals

    I realized, after yesterday, that just sitting around hoping things would get better just wouldn't cut it for me. I needed some goals, a plan. While I don't quite have the plan yet, I do have a list of goals.

    1. Define my relationships and make them the best whatever they are they can be: I have been practicing triage polyamory for a little too long, I think, and it's getting to me. I want to know where I stand with the people I love and then work on developing those relationships. I want my relationships to be fulfilling, and I believe that they can be, but I know that if I expect them to be all the same I will be sorely disappointed. I love the people that I love: T., D., and C., but I love them differently. Not more or less, but differently. And to be honest, with some of them I don't know where I stand, and with others I'm afraid that I don't stand where they want me to stand. But I have to be honest. With them and with myself, and then I have to work from there.
    2. Get T. and D. to be friends again: I've been feeling like crap for ruining a friendship, even if it was accidental, and I think they could be good friends again, but there's a lot to get over. T. says that they're solidly at acquaintances now. Freaking great. I want them to be friends again, maybe not best friends or brothers like T. and J. but something better than now.
    3. Help Stabilize my group of friends: We are in a state of turmoil. I would say it's a freaking warzone, but it's more like the cold war: calm, calm, even friendly, than some conflict where nothing is actually settled. It sucks. It's almost unendurable. I'm tired of the power struggle. I don't blame anyone and I'm not mad at anyone, but this needs to be fixed. So I'm going to do what I can to make it better.

    And that's my grown up Christmas list.

    How I've Been

    Okey-doke. So no doubt people have noticed that I've been a little off lately, what with the crying and all. Sorry about that. I've been feeling sort of depressed for the last few weeks. Part of it is my brain being screwey, and so I'm going to get my meds adjusted with maybe a stronger anti-depressant. But I know that's not all I need to do.
    What's been going on for me is this: I've been feeling guilty, like everyone's unhappiness is caused by me (well not everyone on the entire planet, but a lot of the unhappiness I've been dealing with recently). And I've been feeling powerless to help everyone, which only compounds the guilt. I've also been afraid to go to anyone for help, lest I only add to their burden. I've also been trying to take on everyone's problems in part to help them, and probably in part as penance.
    Another of my problems is that I don't trust people. Not that I think they're bad people or always plotting something, but I don't trust people not to be fragile or not to screw up. I have a tendency to see people as being made of glass, and that if I push to hard they will shatter. I also tend to think that people don't always take the constructive solutions, and that if I depend on anyone else, they will, although well intentioned, mess it up worse.
    And the last of my problems is hopelessness. There have been some problems lately that I've been dealing with in my relationships and friend groups, and I think I may be blowing it way our of proportion, but it's been hard for me because I can't see it getting any better. When I look to the future, I see it continuing as it is, all strife and struggle, or exploding in a massive conflict which will shatter everything. And then I will be left to pick up the pieces. I know this probably isn't true, but this is how I've been feeling.

    What I need to do is learn to accept help and, yes, even sacrifice without feeling guilty, I have to let other people do for me as I am willing to do for them. I need to realize that it's not a test or a trap, but a genuine offer out of love. I also need to learn to trust people more, and not think that they will break. Maybe people are tougher than I think they are. I also need to have a little faith in the future, in time. Thomas says that things get better, eventually, and I guess I need to remember that.

    Anyway, I'm really going to work on this, but I can't promise it will be instant. Anyway, thanks for being here for me :).

    Monday, January 9, 2012

    Who I am and what this is

    My name is Ruthie. I am 20 years old. I write. I draw. I have a job. I am getting married in April to the man I love very much. I am bisexual. I am a nerd and a gamer.

    This blog is nothing in particular. It will be where I store my random thoughts. The name Thought Spirals comes from a pecular habit I have. Sometimes my mind gets stuck on things, and it can lead towards a downward spiral of thoughts. This is not meant to be one of those downward spirals. However, as that thought patern is part of me, and, honestly sounded a little bit cool, I decided to use it as a blog title.

    So, what will be posted here? To be honest, I don't know. There will be some gaming stories, there will be some reviews, there might be rants, there might be compliments. There might be links to youtube videos. There might be repetitive phrasing. In other words, I don't really know. Anyway I hope you enjoy.

    Have a great day,
    Ruthie