Getting Older... and more sensitive?
(And by old I mean 22. Sucks to be the rest of you)
So I've finally gotten around to playing some of the single player in CoD4 and its been hit and miss. I'm a bit of a prude, so seeing the same formula (albeit one proven to do well for them) executed with a contemporary mask (To be reductive) is frustrating. Not to mention the dozens of moments where I've clearly died for 'unnatural reasons'. (A screwed up scripted event, etc.) But there's also been a few moments of emotional poignancy.
*Spoilzlert!*
In particular, during 'Shock and Awe' while you're manning the Mk19, a Cobra paralleling you gets knocked in the tail with an RPG. Hollywood ensues: "I'm hit! Going down! Going down!" Bam! Dead.
Okay, so here's where I get to do my Black Hawk Down scenario! Being a big fan of the book and movie, (if one can be a fan over a controversial military engagement like that) I got a little excited.
But this is where it gets weird...
I hear her voice come over the Comm, strained and pleading, and I begin to tear up. What? Crying? Why in God's name am I CRYING while playing Call of EFFING Duty 4, manning a beastly automatic grenade launcher, surrounded by big burly Marines? (Though that sentence is indicative of latent homosexual tendencies... I should look into that)
Whatever the case, after I rescue her (Yes, with tears in my eyes) I close the game and start relaying the happenstance to my wife. Of course she thinks its precious and adorable--and truth be told I'm no manly man, but I'm certainly not apt to tears, not even at funerals-- but it got me thinking.
What's the deal, old people? Is this something peculiar to me? A result of having a significant loved one in my life? Identifying with the military since I'm in the Military Fan Club that is the ANG? The homosexual thing? 
And what about you guys? Have you caught yourself misting during a chick flick? Sobbing at weddings? Cooing over the precious little'uns?
Discuss your humanity.
(Edit: Because I can't spell sense)
My humanity has been surgically removed.
The older I get the less emotionally sensetive I get. My imagination is gone, and I'm less passioniate about things (even video games). I think it has something to do with going to work every day and having adult responsibilities (mortgage, bills). I think having a significant loved one in my life has not made me more sensitive, but it makes me more comfortable with life in general.
I think people develop differently than other people but in your case you need to put your foot down and stop allowing your wife to pick the movies you goto. You manliness factor is way down! You need more action in your life, your crying is not because your afraid or happy about the rescue but your inner man crying tears of joy at the carnage!
So in the future more violence and action = happier you.
Xfire: Pharacon
Tempest says: "A team hat doe snot communicate and talk to each other about what the next move will be is going to lose."
I get tear-eyed during most tear-jerkers. But that's not half of it. I got tear-eyed at the end of "Terminator 2". I got real tear-eyed during "I Am Legend". I got tear eyed close to the end of "Meet The Parents". I got tear-eyed during "Click". I got tear-eyed at the end of "Enchanted"...
I get tear-eyed to fictional emotional stimula a lot more often than I care to admit. Maybe it will help me live longer.
I cried during "Home Alone"
Got any toast?
Honestly I'm going the opposite direction. I mean, honestly, I was way more sensitive when I was 16 than I am now. I remember my first time and I'd be doing good to have lasted, oh, say, a minute then it was all over and I'm apologizing and she's telling me in broken English mixed with some Spanish when words failed her -- she was the hot, 21-year-old Guatemalan niece of the president of the Macintosh Users Group I belonged to -- that it was okay and no, that 60 seconds of spastic humping did not in fact get her to that miraculous place spoken of by so many of the upper classmen and that it was a-okay because she had an IUD -- she kept pantomiming a 'T' which I assume was an IUD or maybe I'm reading too much into it and it was merely "hey, slow down son, let's make sure that's not my bellybutton" -- and so I was all dandy until I realized maybe 2 years later that "hey, you know what?," she was probably trying to get knocked up on purpose in order to get citizenship or somesuch like that but all I really remember is kissing her tasted like sweet corn-on-the-cob and I'm almost positive that my eyes rolled back in my head at some point probably 35 seconds in.
Rock Band Name Generator!... too funny to merely be coincidence.
"Truly, this mishap has set back the swamp sciences several years." - H.P. Lovesauce, lamenting a tragedy.
Preserved for when you're sober.
Man, that was weird even for ColdForged.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
"The old man got to me!"
Oddly enough, I'm pretty detached from my emotions in real situations where you would expect someone to cry (e.g., loss of a loved-one), but I tend to let fictional situations get to me pretty consistently. There's an episode of Deep Space Nine, called "The Visitor." The premise is that Jake Sisko thinks his father is killed in an accident. It turns out that he isn't killed, but trapped in subspace somewhere (aren't they always?). Every now and then, Captain Sisko re-appears, sometimes taking years between appearances, but he doesn't age because of subspace. Each time he comes back, Jake loses it, and so did I, the first time I saw the episode. It still gets to me a little.
XBL: NSMike | Steam | PSN: NSMike | Wii Friend Code: 7763 1519 2475 2278 | GWJ Google Calendar
Do you have kids yet? If not, woo boy.
Baba Ganoush1
Are you addressing me, or Novin?
XBL: NSMike | Steam | PSN: NSMike | Wii Friend Code: 7763 1519 2475 2278 | GWJ Google Calendar
We only cry over moving Elton John performances. If you tear up over lame voice-overs in a dorky little war game, you can't join the club. Ever.
I have the same stuff happen to me. I am usually pretty stoic in situations that prompt emotional displays from others, but fictional entertainment situations get through my shields with alarming ease. I mist up during that same episode of DS9. I still feel it when I watch the episode of TNG "The Inner Light" where Picard gets zapped by the space probe and mentally lives an entire lifetime in the span of several hours.
Usually my emotions are linked to music. It is so easy to make me feel something with the right soundtrack. I tear up every time I watch Gandalf falling with the Balrog from the beginning of Two Towers, especially when they show the wide shot of them falling into the large cavern and the score is just blasting. The same thing happens when they are lighting the signal fires during Return of the King. I am just a sucker for a good orchestral score I guess
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Prederick wrote:
Inner Light had me good. Also, the Nazi episode of the new Outer Limits - Tribunal. Pure brilliance. River of tears. Same goes for "A Stitch In Time" (also Outer Limits).
And yes the music is very important.
Obviously, your subconscious is making you aware of your ever-impending mortality and the biological need to make hay, not war is overtaking your manly desires to be a single, war-mongering, womanising machine. Soon you'll be nothing more than a nappy-changing pansy who crys because his little girl said, 'Da da'.
The real question is... how long will you be able to resist these urges?
(If you are already a father then please ignore the above consultation... it's probably a side-effect of your metrosexual TV show-watching habits...)
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
I've been called by the people that know me best: amoral, anti-christ, robot, monster, vaguely human. I wouldn't as far as my GF and family have gone in labelling me devoid of humanity. I think I'm on the same page as the protagonist of Camus' Stranger. 'Cept I like psychobilly music. And I'm sensible enough to keep guns away from me.
The brain you stole, Fritz. Think of it. The brain of a dead man waiting to live again in a body I made with my own hands!
http://isisless.deviantart.com/
XBOX LIVE: AtomicVideoHead
Wait, so you cried when you were saving the pilot? That affected you because you were so into the characters? And you stopped playing after you saved her?
You, um... you might want to not play CoD4 any more.
Remember, only by treating everyone with dignity and respect can we maintain the element of surprise for that inevitable day when we wipe our enemies from the face of the Earth.
Oh, by the way, here's a little test of your humanity.
Make sure you can hear the music.
XBL: NSMike | Steam | PSN: NSMike | Wii Friend Code: 7763 1519 2475 2278 | GWJ Google Calendar
Yeah, test, sure.
As long as we're along those lines, Thai Insurance has a bunch of powerful commercials.
"Three blokes go into a pub. One of them is kind of stupid, and the whole scene unfolds with a tedious inevitability." - Bill Bailey
I love that Final Fantasy music. (FFX if i'm not mistaken?) I felt a little teary when i first saw that a while back...
Of - power - insessantly
Plagued - by - malefisense
Doomed - to - insidious -
Death - is - he - who - breaks
this - monument - i - prophesy
I typically only lose it when something I'm watching or hearing makes me relate to something painful to remember. Off the top of my head, I can only think of two things:
1) The part in Click where he rewinds back to see the last time he saw his dad. My dad passed away about 4 years ago, and while I wasn't a dick to him like the character Sandler plays, it always makes me wish I could rewind back and just see him again.
2) The official video for 3 Door Down's "When I'm Gone". The song doesn't bother me, but having to go through saying goodbye to my wife, as she was getting ready to deploy (even though she got sent back within a week, before ever leaving the country)... well, that video just messes me up.
Otherwise I'm pretty emotionally blank.
Edit: Other than these two things, I'm more like the posters saying they're the opposite of you. I'm much less emotional now than I was at 22, and I'm only 25.
IronClad Online: PurEvil
Yes, it's called "To Zanarkand" by Nobuo Uematsu, also the composer of the music for Lost Odyssey. If you search for To Zanarkand on youtube, there are numerous amateur performances as well as a video of an orchestral version. The version in the YTMND I linked is actually a bit of a watered-down version. This is probably the best amateur performance on youtube.
XBL: NSMike | Steam | PSN: NSMike | Wii Friend Code: 7763 1519 2475 2278 | GWJ Google Calendar
Novin, sorry. Anyone with kids would probably agree, there are levels of fear and hurt that you never knew existed, thankfully the happy emotions are equally represented.
Baba Ganoush1
The end of that Futurama episode where Fry's dog is waiting outside the pizza place for Fry to come back is the saddest thing on TV ever!
!
Sometimes it's nice being a girl. I don't have to feel bad when I cry during Battlestar, or during Disney movies, or when I get a splinter, or when there's no more cake left. Neener, neener.
ETA:
Yes. Yes it is. After the movie, I thought, Hey, now I can watch the Seymour episode again and not feel sad! But that plan? Epic fail.
"Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, Kat. You." - Haakon7
My Website v. 3.0
I used to be an emotional flatline back in my early twenties. My daughter was born when I was 29, and it took her no time whatsoever to push buttons I didn't know I had. I'm much softer in many ways, and much harder in others. I couldn't imagine killing someone years ago, but I can imagine scenarios now. I am definitely not the same person I was three years ago.
My wife read somewhere, and likes to repeat, "Having a child is like ripping your heart from your chest and letting it run around outside your body."
Amen. Country songs are starting to make me tear up at work. ...stupid country songs...
Aside from that, my wife tells me I'm dead inside. That always makes me smile.
Don't you understand, Cliff? We put a chainsaw on a machine gun! That's it! It doesn't get more awesome than that! We've peaked, man! We've peaked! - ctrl-alt-del on Gears of War 2
QFT.
Also:
Boy am I glad I clicked on this thread.
Xbox Live: CrankyBaby
baggachipz: Who cares about Japan, let them have their silly pointless dog games and countless re-hashes of anime-based dragon princess super lucky crapitty crap.
Damn you.
Fedaykin98 wrote:
Let's put it this way. You know that "Over The Rainbow" song with the ukulele sung by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole that was all the rage in commercials a few years ago? I'll sing that in the car when it comes up on the iPod and I cannot get through the line "I hear babies crying and I watch them grow... they'll learn much more than I'll ever know" without getting choked up. F*ckin' kids, man, they'll turn you into blubbering pansies (if you weren't one before).
Glad somebody laughed. The rest of you have icy, dead souls... or it's not as funny typed as it was in my head. Naw, corpselike, listless souls abound.
Rock Band Name Generator!... too funny to merely be coincidence.
"Truly, this mishap has set back the swamp sciences several years." - H.P. Lovesauce, lamenting a tragedy.