Alright, I do feel I need to get this off my mind and chest - sooner rather than later, as the longer I keep it bottled in the worse it’ll get.
This is mostly a message for my friends n acquaintances here on Tumbling; including but not entirely limited to
@ask-the-garuga, @ask-najarala, @ask–seregios, @terin-dragon, and so on.
This is also quite a lengthy post, so be warned ^^;
First, I have to admit a few things. One, I have a considerably hard time just easing up and accepting things as just being a game. That is, I take things a touch too seriously - fiction or not. This coupled with my being a bit of a sensitive person, means it’s easy for me to get worked up over certain things in games or movies or so forth. Sad, but true - though in the past few years it’s been getting better for me.
As a result, Monster Hunter’s been a very…. Touchy subject for me. I have a lot of mixed feelings about it, and when I look past all of that and just play I, like many of you, have a very good time. The problem arises once I start looking too deep into certain things, and fretting over them. Killing and carving monsters, the monsters hunting each other, the Magala’s and the effect their virus has… The ecology of certain monsters and to a varying extent, the fan explanations for some of them - sometimes these making it even worse for me.
Some time back, I had lost interest in MHX. I don’t know why, but I feel I just got burned out of playing MonHun in general, since I couldn’t pick up 4G or 3U for long either. Playing with a few friends (many months later) seemed to cure that however, but by then I was already rather upset over the reveal of the newcomer elder in MHX - Osuto, the graveyard dweller.
I also need to admit that I’m VERY protective of things I love a great deal. I try and remain polite when someone begins bad-talking a franchise, character, or etc that I have strong feelings for, but it’s very hard for me to not feel a bit… Hurt, offended, or start to get defensive about it. So seeing this ‘thing’ desecrating not one but TWO of my favorite monsters, hurt a lot.
Between seeing that and the discussions and speculation over its behavior, there was a lot of anger building up inside me and after a while I simply wanted nothing to do with MHX period. My feelings against the creature were strong enough that I didn’t care if the Leviathans were back, if I could see Nargacuga for the first time, or whatever.
Much later, I eventually did give it a try - my friends assuring me that the elder was an Online only creature (Unfortunately, so was Agnaktor…) so I decided to just stick to the offline. Somewhere along the line I began mellowing out towards the new elder; I still despised it a great deal, but I felt that I could approach it without getting angry. I’d go in, kill it, and then never ever deal with its quest(s) again. Simple.
After 240+ quests and clearing most of the HR2 stuff and nearing the last few Key Quests required to unlock the HR3 urgents… I began feeling a bit uncomfortable again. I ignored that and went to look up Osuto’s weaknesses and…. Well, I ended up seeing a bunch of text that made all those negative feelings I thought I finally buried come rushing back. I spent the next few days feeling quite miserable, and I haven’t touched MHX since.
I felt like I wouldn’t be able to play MHGen because of these feelings, and I’m still divided on that. On one hand, I really want to fight Lagiacrus, Nargacuga, and the others - and I really do want to play with my friends. On the other… I have those awful feelings about that new monster, and sometimes I can just brush them off or simply not think about it, but other times…. It almost consumes me. I get so wrapped up in thinking about my favorite monsters being hurt and…. The anger just grows wildly.
It’s hard writing all that down. When I really think about it, I just feel like some immature child. I’m 26 years old, things like this - in a fantasy game no less - shouldn’t bother me. Yet they do at times. My thoughts on this matter have jumped back and forth several times - from wanting nothing to do with MHX/Gen, to desperately wanting to overcome these feelings and enjoying it for what it is, and back again.
Ultimately, I find that when I don’t think about it - the monster killing, the carving, the pain and the death, this new monster, any of it - then it doesn’t bother me and I can enjoy the game for what it is: A game. Once I start thinking about it, once I start envisioning a favorite monster lying dead on the ground with its neck torn out and being carved up by you, or being killed by another monster (Astalos/Raizex’s cutscene was… Quite outside my comfort zone. It happened all off-screen yes, but if I had to see a Rathalos, Lagiacrus, or Nargacuga in a similar fate…. I… I don’t know what I’d do), or whatever - then I start with the negative emotions; and once they start coming in, it just spirals down from there. I can’t stop thinking about it, and I just get unhappier and unhappier.
Like, on one note - Rathalos’s quest in MH4U. You get into the nest, and he arrives home with lunch in claw, and then you just kill him. (Or capture him, but still). I keep thinking about what that’d be like for him, and how his life might have been going up until that moment…. It’s just a game, but these thoughts slip in every now and then, and once they start coming in, once they take root…. As I said, it just falls apart after that.
So. Now that I’ve finally up and said what’s been bothering me all this time…. I just have to try and figure out how to approach this. Once MHGen arrives, I’ll be able to have help killing that horrid monster.
Again, I’m still not sure I’d even want to approach it. Maybe my friends wouldn’t mind me sitting on the sidelines just for that monster’s quest….? ^^;
Anyway…. Long post, I feel better finally just saying what’s been bothering me, but I’m also now fearing what others will think of me :/
