Umi-san
Procrastinating.
- Location
- ꙮ
@GilcuruLend
Background 1: Alakhai the player is a Han chinese kid who group up in Uyghur with traditional neighbors who interested her in their history, and occasionally took her out to visit their family out in the rural part of the province during summer breaks to go riding and shoot things and generally be a kid. While fond of the high pay that the oil companies provided, a near miss with a mass shooting prompted her parents to move her to [a city in southern China; e.g. AWAY but near a place where internet cafes were possible]. Out of fear for their child's safety, her parents started paying for martial arts lessons to build on the skills she picked up roughhousing. Her shisho/sensei then taught her the use of a sword (likely a dao) after she proved she wasn't immensely dumb. She started playing this game in order to further hone her skills with the bow and on horseback and, not quite consciously, to regain a sense of power and control.
Background 2: She grew up in Kyoto, Japan. In Kyoto, horseback archery festivals take place regularly, and after seeing one at Shimogawa Shrine she grew delighted with the lovely costumes, the gleaming animals, the snap of the bow. She swiftly harassed her parents into letting her join her school's archery club and take up horse riding. While her mother wasn't very happy with the increased muscularity that either of these pursuits led to, she did appreciate the fact that the interest in these traditional pursuits bled into an interest in other pursuits, like clothing. And, while an interest in more hands-on martial pursuits was inevitable, the mother managed to guide Alakhai into taking up aikido, which at least had the merit of emphasizing grace rather than power. Her father, due to a stint abroad as a young man - which only somewhat hampered his opportunities in the company he worked for -, simply enjoyed the fact that she was passionate about something. As a result of having such a deep interest, while completely aware of the fact that it's unlikely to make her much money, Alakhai has sunk far too much time into physical practices. Her relative brutishness ostracized her from her female peers and, while her male ones initially accepted her, as they grew into adolescence she slowly slid into a state of isolation, with only her family, her horse, and the dojo for company. To some degree, she is pursuing this VR game in order to find friends and stimulate an interest in more intellectual pursuits.
Background 3: Alakhai is a late twenty-something male of franco-german ancestry. His parents had fairly typical blue- and pink-collared jobs in relatively rural Ohio, which meant that he had a childhood filled with wandering through the woods with his brothers, competing to see who could shoot various things with a bow they had received as a christmas present, beating each other up, etc. His brothers were the first generation in their family who all went to college and, moreover, didn't abandon their family as hicks and move to NYC (cough second-cousin-removed Patrick cough). Uninterested in complicated and esoteric topics, though not hopeless, Alakhai got a job at a family friend's horse ranch in Wyoming, and worked there skillfully for a couple of years before leaving due to a "difference of opinions." These differences continued until Alakhai became "that guy" to US stables - the one who, while great with horses, travels from ranch to ranch working, getting drunk and into fights.
One day, while Alakhai was lightly hungover and poking at an old chipped tooth, his brother said "hey, by the way, my wife is pregnant. Come to the baby shower?" While somewhat unsurprising that *this* brother was the one who was having the first child - he'd had a girlfriend for long enough to have an anniversary, for god's sake - the fact that one of his brothers was HAVING A CHILD stunned Alakhai. What future did he have? Who, really, would want to be by his side three years later, after countless nights of him coming home late and drunk. Or not at all, and instead showing up at work in the morning, wearing the same clothes, claiming he'd stayed over at a friend's when really he'd been in the tank.
Alakhai came to the decision that he's going to try to not get drunk and into fights. Both for his own sake and maybe because the guy he was staying with had told him he'd kick him out and never talk to him again if he gets in trouble. The game seemed like a cheaper option than therapy - and he's not about to go to an AA meeting and talk about his feelings.
Background 1: Alakhai the player is a Han chinese kid who group up in Uyghur with traditional neighbors who interested her in their history, and occasionally took her out to visit their family out in the rural part of the province during summer breaks to go riding and shoot things and generally be a kid. While fond of the high pay that the oil companies provided, a near miss with a mass shooting prompted her parents to move her to [a city in southern China; e.g. AWAY but near a place where internet cafes were possible]. Out of fear for their child's safety, her parents started paying for martial arts lessons to build on the skills she picked up roughhousing. Her shisho/sensei then taught her the use of a sword (likely a dao) after she proved she wasn't immensely dumb. She started playing this game in order to further hone her skills with the bow and on horseback and, not quite consciously, to regain a sense of power and control.
Background 2: She grew up in Kyoto, Japan. In Kyoto, horseback archery festivals take place regularly, and after seeing one at Shimogawa Shrine she grew delighted with the lovely costumes, the gleaming animals, the snap of the bow. She swiftly harassed her parents into letting her join her school's archery club and take up horse riding. While her mother wasn't very happy with the increased muscularity that either of these pursuits led to, she did appreciate the fact that the interest in these traditional pursuits bled into an interest in other pursuits, like clothing. And, while an interest in more hands-on martial pursuits was inevitable, the mother managed to guide Alakhai into taking up aikido, which at least had the merit of emphasizing grace rather than power. Her father, due to a stint abroad as a young man - which only somewhat hampered his opportunities in the company he worked for -, simply enjoyed the fact that she was passionate about something. As a result of having such a deep interest, while completely aware of the fact that it's unlikely to make her much money, Alakhai has sunk far too much time into physical practices. Her relative brutishness ostracized her from her female peers and, while her male ones initially accepted her, as they grew into adolescence she slowly slid into a state of isolation, with only her family, her horse, and the dojo for company. To some degree, she is pursuing this VR game in order to find friends and stimulate an interest in more intellectual pursuits.
Background 3: Alakhai is a late twenty-something male of franco-german ancestry. His parents had fairly typical blue- and pink-collared jobs in relatively rural Ohio, which meant that he had a childhood filled with wandering through the woods with his brothers, competing to see who could shoot various things with a bow they had received as a christmas present, beating each other up, etc. His brothers were the first generation in their family who all went to college and, moreover, didn't abandon their family as hicks and move to NYC (cough second-cousin-removed Patrick cough). Uninterested in complicated and esoteric topics, though not hopeless, Alakhai got a job at a family friend's horse ranch in Wyoming, and worked there skillfully for a couple of years before leaving due to a "difference of opinions." These differences continued until Alakhai became "that guy" to US stables - the one who, while great with horses, travels from ranch to ranch working, getting drunk and into fights.
One day, while Alakhai was lightly hungover and poking at an old chipped tooth, his brother said "hey, by the way, my wife is pregnant. Come to the baby shower?" While somewhat unsurprising that *this* brother was the one who was having the first child - he'd had a girlfriend for long enough to have an anniversary, for god's sake - the fact that one of his brothers was HAVING A CHILD stunned Alakhai. What future did he have? Who, really, would want to be by his side three years later, after countless nights of him coming home late and drunk. Or not at all, and instead showing up at work in the morning, wearing the same clothes, claiming he'd stayed over at a friend's when really he'd been in the tank.
Alakhai came to the decision that he's going to try to not get drunk and into fights. Both for his own sake and maybe because the guy he was staying with had told him he'd kick him out and never talk to him again if he gets in trouble. The game seemed like a cheaper option than therapy - and he's not about to go to an AA meeting and talk about his feelings.
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